Variety.com
October 17, 2002

TNT Has New 'Bad' Boy

Noth signs to develop a trio of movies in the first year

By MELISSA GREGO

"Sex and the City" star Chris Noth will exec produce and star in a wheel of original movies for TNT based on novels by Anthony Bruno set in the New York crime world.
The first installment will be based on Bruno's "Bad Apple," which Howard Korder ("Stealing Sinatra") has signed on to adapt. Daniel H. Blatt will exec produce the two-hour film along with Noth.

UTA, which reps Noth and Korder, packaged the deal.

The pact calls for the former "Law & Order" star and the basic cable network to mount a trio of movies in the first year, with an option for additional years.

Bruno's series also includes "Bad Guys," "Bad Business," "Bad Moon," "Bad Blood" and "Bad Luck."

"Bad Apple" is tentatively scheduled to premiere on TNT late next summer. Project is considered quite a get for the basic cabler, as nearly all of the broadcast networks have courted Noth for various projects.

Noth told Daily Variety that he's been "running around with these books for four or five years."

"They're funny and dangerous and feature completely unexpected character aspects," he said. "They take well-worn ground and just give it a fresh look in the same way 'The Sopranos' has (for its genre). It's dramatic with major dark comedy overtones, which is why I want to do it."

Noth will portray undercover FBI Special Agent Mike Tozzi, who with longtime partner Cuthbert Gibbons appears throughout the book series. In "Bad Apple," Tozzi and Gibbons work undercover to investigate a crime family.

The novels were written and set in the mid-1980s and 1990s in New York and New Jersey, but will be updated to the present day, the actor said.

One of the reasons Noth went to TNT with the project was that cabler exec Michael Wright got the black humor in it. "Michael got the undertones," Noth said, adding that the books demand that "we go in a different direction" from traditional dramas on network television.

Wright, TNT's senior VP of movies and miniseries, said the project syncs with TNT's goal to offer compelling, scripted dramas that are complementary to the off-network series it airs such as "Law & Order" and "The X-Files" as well as the theatrical dramas.

The "Bad" books are being done as a movie wheel because the material lent itself to a more fully realized treatment, Wright said. "These are fully realized stories that you can't really do in an hour format, and some of us feel it's a genre that was done to great success that hasn't been tackled lately.

"Movie wheels are something we'll explore on a case-by-case basis," Wright added. "Some stuff comes in the door and you look at it as something that would make a great movie, other stuff comes in that works best as a series of movies. We feel the material informs the strategy."

Noth and TNT already collaborated on upcoming original miniseries "Caesar," in which Noth portrays Roman general Pompey.

The thesp will next be seen onstage in the play "What Didn't Happen," produced by Playwrights Horizons for the Duke Theater. He recently was seen in the Broadway run of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man."

Date in print: Thurs., Oct. 17, 2002, Los Angeles

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