HBO Kills Fox News Project

By Alex Weprin 

Well that was fast.

Not even a day after Nikke Finke at Deadline Hollywood reported that HBO had acquired the rights to a movie about Fox News and CEO Roger Ailes (and that MSNBCers Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were on board as producers if it went forward), Finke now adds that HBO has killed the project.

Today I’ve received this email from HBO Films President Len Amato: “We recently decided not to pursue the Ailes project. It had become clear to us before even receiving a script that due to our company’s CNN affiliation the film could never be seen as objective.” Interesting, because today I’ve learned that none of the dealmakers have yet been informed by HBO that the project isn’t going forward.

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Finke suggests that by reporting on it so early in the process, she may have inadvertently killed the project. Oops.

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