Bigger used to be better for movie producer Dean Devlin, who made popcorn spectacles Godzilla and Independence Day in the ’90s.
Now he’s going small by producing a so-called microseries for TNT titled Blank Slate. Each episode of the crime thriller is just two minutes long.
Blank Slate writer-director John Harrison uses the ever-popular amnesia gimmick (Terminator 4, Fringe) to drive its story about an FBI program that implants memories of dead people into the brain of a woman who can’t remember who she is (played by former soap star Lisa Brenner, pictured).
"What we’re doing is drastically segmenting a TV movie," Devlin told Variety. "Instead of a three-act structure, we’ve created a 20-act structure. Harrison has had to write a cliffhanger on every fifth page of the script."
Blank bits will run in between episodes of Law and Order starting Sept. 8.
Also into shorts: Rescue Me. On June 24, FX Network launches five-minute minisodes of Rescue Me aimed at holding onto fans of the Denis Leary firefighter dramedy. Because of the writers’ strike, USA Today reports, season five won’t debut until April, which puts 19 months between fresh episodes. The Rescue Me clips can also be seen at Crackle.com.
Photo courtesy Electric Entertainment
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