CBS Is Said to Cancel Reagan Mini-Series (NYT Report)

nder pressure from Republican and conservative groups, CBS is expected to announce as early as today that it is canceling its plans to run a two-part mini-series in November deconstructing the Ronald Reagan presidency, two people close to the decision said last night.

They said the film would most likely instead be handed over to CBS's pay-cable sibling, Showtime.

The announcement would perhaps the first time a major broadcast network has ever removed a completed project from its schedule because of political pressure and under the threat of an advertising boycott.

(An earlier article about the possibility that CBS would scrap the four-hour mini-series appears in the Arts section, which went to press before the latest development.)

CBS executives have been reworking the film over the last week, trying to fix what many critics - none of whom had seen the film and were relying mostly on a report in The New York Times about its contents - called inaccurate and unfair portrayals of the former president.

The CBS chairman, Les Moonves, became concerned amid those complaints and ordered a revision of the film, several people close to the process said.

Showtime, which like CBS is a division of Viacom, does not have the same advertising and ratings concerns as does the broadcast network. With a mission to garner enough water-cooler talk to draw new subscribers, premium pay cable networks like Showtime are less concerned with their overall ratings pictures and thus less susceptible to boycott threats.

The "earlier article in the Arts section":

November 4, 2003

CBS Is Reconsidering Mini-Series on Reagan

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

OS ANGELES, Nov. 3 — Under pressure from Republicans and conservative groups, CBS is weighing a decision to scrap a completed four-hour mini-series, "The Reagans," an unflattering portrait of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, according to a person involved in the production.

CBS has already demanded changes in the film, said another figure involved, the director, Robert Allan Ackerman. Although there have been reports that Mr. Ackerman had left the production, he said in an interview on Monday that he was "at this moment" still connected with it.

"I handed in my cut," he said, "and when CBS said they wanted to make changes, I said, `Let me see it when it's done.' "

It is unusual for a network to start substantively re-editing a completed film only weeks before it is scheduled to be shown.

The possible cancellation of the mini-series was first reported on Monday in Daily Variety. A CBS spokesman declined to comment, and it was unclear why the network would consider bowing to pressure.

The movie, which ranges from the early years of the Reagans' marriage through Mr. Reagan's White House years and his current battle with Alzheimer's disease, was to be broadcast on Nov. 16 and 18. Those who have read the script said it depicts a controlling and fiercely determined Mrs. Reagan, who has poor relations with her children, and a president who is cheerful, distant and a bit out of touch. The film stars James Brolin as Mr. Reagan and Judy Davis as Mrs. Reagan.

In a recent interview Mr. Brolin said that the film depicted, to some degree, Mrs. Reagan taking control of the White House as the president's health began to fail. Mr. Reagan has had Alzheimer's disease for years. "She took over," Mr. Brolin said. He said the film showed the Reagan family as troubled, with their children not especially close to their parents. An article in The New York Times on Oct. 21 described the script, which depicts Mr. Reagan as a skilled politician but is also disapproving of him and Mrs. Reagan. At the time CBS executives, including Leslie Moonves, the CBS chairman, said that the intent was to make a historically accurate story.

But over the last week Republican and conservative commentators have said that the CBS mini-series seemed to be biased and to be a distortion. As a result there was speculation that the film might not be shown on CBS but be offered to the Showtime cable network, which is also owned by Viacom.

People close to the show, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that CBS executives had approved the script in advance and had also seen the mini-series without raising a dissent. But after the Times article and the tide of criticism, CBS executives seemed to have second thoughts.

In one notably controversial scene in the film, Mr. Reagan is shown as not only indifferent to the AIDS epidemic but also hostile to those who had the disease. During one scene in which Mrs. Reagan pleads with her husband to help people battling AIDS, Mr. Reagan says, "Those who live in sin shall die in sin."

Mr. Moonves told CNBC last week, "There are things we think go too far." He also said the production was unfinished.

CBS has not distributed the film, but Reagan supporters have already voiced strong objections. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent CBS a letter last week requesting that associates of Mr. Reagan review it for historical accuracy. In the absence of such a review, Mr. Gillespie asked the network to place a disclaimer on the screen every 10 minutes, advising viewers that the production contained fictional material.

At the same time L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, sent a letter to 100 top television advertisers, urging them to review the script before agreeing to advertise on the mini-series. Mr. Bozell called the movie "a partisan attack against one of America's most beloved presidents." Other conservative commentators have joined in the criticism. Meanwhile Merv Griffin, the former television host and a longtime Reagan friend, called the series a "cowardly act" on MSNBC recently.

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the producers of the mini-series, who are usually cordial with the press, declined to respond to phone calls. A spokeswoman said that they were in a "wait and see mode."

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2003; 4:04 p.m. EST

Streisand 'Tight' With Reagan Biopic Producers

CBS entertainment chief Les Moonves insists that Democrat diva Barbra Streisand didn't have anything to do with the insulting portrayal of President Reagan and his wife Nancy in his network's upcoming biopic "The Reagans."

But only four months ago the anti-Republican songstress was described in mainstream press reports as "tight" with the Reagan-bashing film's producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron.

On Thursday Moonves said that neither he nor Streisand had anything to do with the idea of casting Streisand's husband, James Brolin, in the lead role. "It was the producers. ... There were a number of names bandied about and they came to us and they suggested it. It was not having anything to do with his political bent or who he is married to."

Back in July, when plans for "The Reagans" were first announced, Moonves similarly insisted that his network "hasn't asked Barbra Streisand what she thinks about James Brolin playing Ronald Reagan."

At the time, however, the Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes called Moonves on the carpet for the fib:

"That was being a bit disingenuous; 'Reagans' producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are this tight with Streisand, having worked with her Barwood Films on the NBC movie 'Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,' about an Army colonel who was kicked out of the service for acknowledging she was a lesbian."

De Moraes noted that Streisand had also teamed up with Zadan and Meron on the Lifetime flick "What Makes a Family," about "a lesbian who has to fight to get custody of a baby born to her artificially inseminated partner when said partner dies after giving birth."

"So we're betting that Meron and Zadan cleared this bit of casting with Streisand before signing on the dotted line," the Post reporter surmised.

And it's probably no accident that Meron and Zadan tapped Australian actress Judy Davis to portray Nancy Reagan. Davis, it turns out, had also worked for the Hollywood duo before, playing the lesbian love interest in their aforementioned "Serving in Silence." Zadan and Meron also used Davis in a TV film about the life of Judy Garland.

Three years ago the crusading producers caused something of a splash when they won the bidding rights to produce "The Dana Rivers Story," a docudrama about a high school teacher who was fired from his job after undergoing a sex change operation and telling the student newspaper that he was ready to begin teaching as a woman.

Meron and Zadan's focus on gay themes could prompt some to wonder whether their interests have anything to do with the portrayal of President Reagan as an unabashed homophobe who believed that gays deserve to get AIDS.

"They who live in sin shall die in sin," the film has Reagan proclaiming, a sentiment those who know him say he never voiced.

"[Zadan and Meron] recognize a 'gay sensibility' in their work but say they have no particular agenda," reported Variety earlier this year, before the duo nailed down the Reagan project.

"I think who we are as people informs what we want to do," Meron told the Hollywood paper. "Being gay men, you can't help but have that there in terms of the choice of our material."

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November 4, 2003

CBS Is Said to Cancel Reagan Mini-Series

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November 4, 2003

CBS Is Reconsidering Mini-Series on Reagan