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Storyline, ABC flying with 'Pan'
Alphabet brings 'Peter' to the smallscreen

Sony Pictures TV-based producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are hooking up a musical revival of "Peter Pan" for ABC.

Coming 50 years after NBC broadcast the live Mary Martin-toplined staging of the Broadway musical, the project will mark the first time the tuner take on "Pan" will be filmed as a movie.

Zadan and Meron -- now in Toronto lensing "Hairspray" for New Line -- are hoping to have the ABC project ready for broadcast by the end of 2007, pending casting of Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

"Pan" is one of several projects in the works at Sony's longform division, which has managed to thrive under longtime topper Helen Verno despite a telepic marketplace that is challenged to say the least.

Additions to the Sony slate include four-hour WWII miniseries "The Longest Winter," in development at ABC. Studio has also set up the supernatural-tinged "Return From the Dead" at A&E.

As for "Pan," after Sony gave the thumbs up, project was brought to ABC, where movies/mini topper Quinn Taylor and entertainment prexy Steve McPherson quickly hopped aboard.

"This is a huge priority for us and has been over the almost two years it took to get the rights," Taylor said. The project "is spot on in the tradition of classic ABC musicals, with huge family appeal across every generation."

Irene Mecchi, who wrote the script for Zadan/Meron's "Annie" and worked on Disney's "The Lion King" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame," has been recruited to pen a teleplay for "Pan" based on the original Broadway musical. Royce Bergman of Storyline will coordinate for Zadan/Meron.

"Helen has been the Tinkerbell of this project," Meron said. "She's always been making things happen, moving things around."

Zadan said he and Meron have wanted to do "Peter Pan" since 1993, when they worked with "Pan" composer Jule Styne on another Styne title they brought to TV: "Gypsy."

As with their past musicals for television, Zadan said the plan is to contemporize the material while preserving the central themes.

"It's not unlike what we're doing with 'Hairspray,'" he said. "We're not taking the shows verbatim and putting them on film. We're reinventing them while honoring the basic material."

Both of Storyline's 2007 tentpoles are being produced with Verno and Sony for ABC. Studio is also backing the WMA-repped producers' take on "A Raisin in the Sun," starring Sean Combs (Daily Variety, May 23).

While Zadan/Meron usually do their musicals via Touchstone, studio agreed to loan the producers out to Sony, which controls the rights to "Pan."

Verno has been able to build a profitable TV movie business at Sony by going after a select number of high-profile projects (such as former Sony chief John Calley's six-part Tony & Ridley Scott-produced CIA mini "The Company") and by signing overall deals with a few key producers. In addition to Zadan/Meron, Sony has pacts with the prolific team of Frank Von Zerneck and Bob Sertner, as well as Diane Sokolow.

As a result, while the major broadcast nets have abandoned the movie-of-the-week biz -- and some major cablers have cut back on telepics -- Sony has carved out a money-making niche as one of the town's leading telepic suppliers.

"It's not 'Spider-Man,' but it's OK," Verno said, noting that with nearly a dozen films produced by her unit last season, the studio had one of its busiest years in a while. In part, that's because a number of cable players have jumped into the TV movie game. AMC, for example, had a major hit with the Sony/Stan Brooks-produced mini "Broken Trail."

Verno calls Sony's 2006-07 slate "the strongest we've ever had," pointing to projects set up at ABC, CBS, NBC, TNT, A&E and Lifetime.

At the Alphabet, net is developing "The Longest Winter," with Von Zerneck, Sertner and Judith Verno exec producing. Based on Alex Kershaw's book of the same name, pic tells the true story of teenage American soldiers capture by Germany as Hitler was making his last stand.

James Sadwith (CBS' "Elvis") is writing and will direct the project, which is awaiting a greenlight from ABC.

Over at A&E, Sony has set up "Return From the Dead," based on a Rolling Stone article about a pediatrician who becomes a believer in life after death. Diana Kerew and Judith Verno are exec producing, with Robert Caswell ("Something the Lord Made") penning the script.

While there's no denying the longform business has downsized, Verno sees an upside.

"Less volume has actually been a good thing," she said, noting that so-called event projects such as "Broken Trail" or "The Company" attract bigger talent than the old MOWs did.

"It's a more interesting time than it used to be," Verno said. "If a (network) is going to make 10 movies each year, they're going to make 10 fine movies as opposed to just putting on another movie every Sunday. These movies help brand the networks the way series do."

Calley said Verno's aggressiveness and attention to detail during "The Company's" transition from feature project to miniseries has been "the glue that's held it together."

"She's a person that could run feature film production at a studio," he added. "She gets it done."