newsmakers

newsmakers

Lifetime deciding what to do with Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig movie

NEW YORK

The fate of a Lifetime TV movie featuring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig remained unclear Friday after the project’s planned secrecy was spoiled.

The former “Saturday Night Live” stars made the ominously titled “A Deadly Adoption,” playing a couple who befriend a pregnant woman in hopes of adopting her child. Lifetime’s movies, frequently melodramas about life and love that appeal to the network’s primarily female audience, are a genre unto themselves and often ripe for parody.

“We are disappointed that our secret project with Will and Kristen was leaked, and the network is determining the fate of the movie,” said Michael Feeney, spokesman for Lifetime’s corporate parent, A&E Networks, on Friday.

A spokesman for the actors’ talent agency had no immediate comment on Lifetime’s plans.

After word of the project got out, Ferrell issued a statement that he and Wiig had decided it was “in the best interest for everyone to forgo the project entirely.” Lifetime had said the movie was due to air this summer.

Odenkirk reunites with Cross for Netflix series

Bob Odenkirk, currently starring in “Better Call Saul” on AMC, will reunite with comedy partner David Cross for a sketch-comedy series on Netflix.

The pair first worked together on “The Ben Stiller Show” and later collaborated on HBO’s “Mr. Show with Bob and David” from 1995 to 1998, which has since become an influential comedy touchstone for a generation of performers.

The Netflix series, which will be called “With Bob and David,” does not yet have a premiere date but will have a considerably shorter run than is typical, with four half-hour episodes and a one-hour “making of” special.

Combined dispatches