FX is developing Drones, a dark comedy from writer/novelist Chad Kultgen and Milo Ventimiglia and Russ Cundiff’s production company Divide Pictures. Kultgen will write the comedy, about drone pilots in Nevada who commute to war. He will executive produce the CAA-packed project with Ventimiglia and Cundiff. Ventimiglia is not set to star though that is a possibility. Kultgen’s writing credits include pilots Waiting to Die and Southern Comfort and novel The Average American Male. Heroes alum Ventimiglia will next be seen in the upcoming Adam Sandler movie I Hate You Dad.
FX Developing Comedy About Drone Pilots
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I’m laughing already!
Really? My concern is if it’s got the syndication legs to sell in tertiary markets like… I don’t know… Afghanistan. Might not pick up on the HILARITY.
F*cking beam me up.
Way to go! Awesome guys.
There is nothing funny about these diabolical machines, which are being used to slaughter innocent civilians in the name of corporate war profits. Leave it to Murdoch’s evil empire to bring something this unsavory to the small screen. Boycott the sponsors.
Oh, shut up. One of the funniest movies of all time, The Producers, is about Nazi Germany.
@SimAlex2000 That comparison isn’t really accurate as the Nazis no longer exist and haven’t for decades, which is why it is easy to make fun of. Drone killings are still happening today, which makes it a much more difficult topic to tackle from a comedic viewpoint. The same things applies to the person who mentioned MASH and Korea, which had also ended. What next, a sitcom about black market water sellers and dehydration in Darfur? Or a sitcom based on the life of the person who pushes the start execution button for the state of Texas? Oh, I got a good one: Mangled! The hilarious story of meat industry workers who got mangled by the machinery and then fired for it. You know, a funny adaptation of Fast Food Nation. Wait, homeless vets! That’s a comedy goldmine just waiting to be tapped!
no it isn’t.
it’s about retrospectively glorifying Nazi Germany, which unintentionally turns into a farce.
this is a comedy about killing people 30 minutes from the suburbs in the safety of your own bunker. not funny.
The versions I saw (Mel Brooks’ original, the stage play and the remake) were about a crooked producer who persuades his accountant they should mount a show doomed to fail so they can pocket the money. They then choose what they think is a sure-fire bomb, a show written by a brainless ex-Nazi, starring a moron and directed by a walking disaster. The whole film is a farce and decidedly not about glorifying Nazi Germany. Which The Producers did you see?
I’d still like my own drone, though. Would come in very useful.
No it isn’t.
you’re obviously not very well informed. “Drones” (if that’s what they’re called now-a-days) do not slaughter innocent civilians. They only make precise air strikes against known terrorists or terrorist hideouts (terrorist being violent militants belonging to groups such as al-qaeda, taliban, haqqani, etc)
i think with the right delivery and subject mattter, it’ll be a high quality show. When i saw this article, i lol’d!
I too was suppress to giggle.
Brilliant idea!
A comedy about people who fly remote control vehicles designed to kill unsuspecting human beings?
Hilarious. Not.
Forgotten about the Muslim murderers who killed 3000+ innocent Americans on 9/11??
Those “Human Beings” are not unsuspecting. They are trying to kill US and coalition soldiers who are there fighting terrorism. The individuals targeted by “drones” are not good people. They are terrorists and they know their actions will mark them as targets. They invite their own death and their only hope is to kill you first. Yes.. You Carl.
Okay, now I am laughing. “I’m laughing already” that is just brilliant
INT. LAS VEGAS BUNKER. Seated at a high tech work station a DRONE OPERATOR (a John Krasinski-type so we’ll call him JOHN) stares intensely at a glowing screen containing B/W satellite imagery of a small village in Northern Pakistan. A targeting box follows a 3-truck caravan thru a narrow, hut-lined dirt road – the village’s main street. JOHN reaches for the Venti Caramel Frapuccino with 5 Add-Shots and No Whipped, misses and the slushy drink spills over the keyboard, causing the Targeting Box to veer off of the convoy and over a crowded nearby Elementary School. A sexy FEMALE VOICE announces “Missiles Away. Impact in Five… Four… Three…”. Hilarity ensues.
LOL Point perfectly made.
Canned laughter will be a must.
actually could be a very funny world to explore. remember, no one thought a MASH unit in Korea could be funny either. Only led to an amazing movie and the most successful comedy show of all time. It’s about the execution. Sometimes these serious subject matters can provide very funny observations about the times we live in. Why don’t we actually wait to pass judgement until we see it.
I used to agree with the ‘let’s wait to see it to pass judgment” sentiment, but let’s face it – life is short, entertainment options are plentiful and there’s more to life than watching TV. They lost me at the logline. Oh well. My life will go on as will the lives of the show’s creators.
These are some dark, cold-blooded hearts that can make a comedy about killing people in remote operated machines. As much as I love movies and the industry, there are some sick people working in it.
I never thought The Big C could make a great sit-com out of cancer so who knows, maybe somebody can make a decent comedy out of the remote controlled killing of people. But I’m predicting it won’t turn out well. It’s a protest waiting to happen. Of course, I’m sure, some stupid execs decided that such potential protests would create cross promotional synergy with a net positive result.
I think its a great idea…I mean not many people know how military personnel act at work or stuff they talk about…and in todays age tv has gone to a completly different style of humor then the past…I hope it goes
If it has any anti-war political overtones, which nearly all Hollywood-produced leftist whackjob shows have, the it will fail. Quickly.
When will you Hollywood folks learn? The working folks/middle class taxpayers, the bottom 49% of Americans, stopped paying for or looking at Hollywood products years ago.
This could be the next DELTA FARCE!!! Can’t wait. Loling already.
perfect three to be working together. it will be nothing less than funny and brilliant.
looking forward to it.
On FX? I could see this being a biting, transgressional comedy. If it were on broadcast, then I’d be over in the corner puking already.
A TV comedy dark or light about U.S. drone pilots… how incredibly sick and grotesque.
Some of the comments here on this article are also sick and grotesque and highly uninformed. Some comments here actually compare this really unfortunate program idea to M.A.S.H. which was centered on a MEDICAL unit, you know, doctors saving lives, not robot assassins killing civilians. Remember? Do I really have to point this out?
And yes, Mel Brooks’ film Springtime for Hitler was spoofing the Nazis. So use your brain for 30 seconds. In comparing this drone program to Springtime for Hitler, you are comparing the US drone pilots and US Air Force and the US to… the Nazis.
One commenter here actually believes that the U.S. drone robot assassination program only kills “terrrorists”. Here is an informative article, “For Our Allies, Death From Above” an op-ed piece published in the New York Times on November 3, 2011, by Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer, in which Smith recounts his meeting in Pakistan with a group of Pashtun tribal elders– civilian men– angry about their civilian families and friends murdered by Mr. Obama’s cowardly, unwise, and by the way illegal and immoral drone attacks. They presented to him physical evidence– identifiable missile fragments, photographs of dead and mutilated children, women, etc.– of the civilian deaths wrought by these drone attacks. Smith also makes a point of featuring meeting a sixteen-year-old boy, the son of one of the Pashtun villagers.
Not very funny, is it. Will the FX program be featuring story lines such as these? I doubt it.
Correction: I meant Mel Brook’s film The Producers in which a washed-up Broadway producer and a timid accountant dream up a get-rich Ponzi scheme featuring the sure-to-close-opening-night show Springtime for Hitler written literally by a Nazi.
Hey, if they could make a sitcom set in a World War II German prison camp with funny Nazis, why not?