CBS’ Stewart Movie Could Complicate Her Comeback

Freed from prison two weeks ago, Martha Stewart is planning multiple TV projects to continue repairing her battered image. But she might not like what CBS -- her onetime broadcast partner -- is cooking up.

Stewart, who’s planning to star in a new version of NBC’s “The Apprentice” and host a syndicated lifestyle show next season, will be the subject of a two-hour unauthorized TV movie that CBS is rushing into production in Toronto later this month, possibly for telecast during the May ratings “sweep,” which helps set the rates that local stations charge advertisers.

Sources said CBS and its sister studio, Paramount Pictures, were in talks about the lead role with Cybill Shepherd, who played Stewart in NBC’s 2003 movie “Martha, Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart,” based on a bestselling biography by Christopher Byron. NBC’s campy take on the billionaire founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. was the highest-rated TV movie of that season.

But a few noteworthy events have happened in her life since then.

CBS’ still-untitled movie would cover her tumultuous rise, fall and rebirth over the last six years, from the day her company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 to her release from prison this month after serving five months for lying to regulators about a 2001 stock sale.

CBS executives developed the project in-house this year, the sources said, as it became apparent that Stewart’s humbling prison stint had softened public perceptions of her as aloof and arrogant.

Producer Tom Patricia said he had never met Stewart and didn’t know whether she was aware of the project. He described it as a “dramatic character study” rather than an opportunity to take cheap shots.

“I think it’s dramatic, I think it’s compelling, I think it’s fair,” said Patricia, who has more than a dozen TV movies to his credit, including FX’s “RFK.” “I don’t do schlocky things.”

The CBS movie could prove an unexpected complication for “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett and NBC, which have made a substantial investment in redeveloping Stewart for mass consumption. She will play the boss in a new version of “The Apprentice,” and she and Burnett are developing her new syndicated show, “Martha Stewart Living.”

After her conviction, Viacom Inc.’s CBS dumped her syndicated lifestyle show, which was distributed by sister company King World Productions.

The movie script, written by Charles Bohl, will rely on court records from Stewart’s 2004 trial as well as magazine articles and other sources, Patricia said. Other roles include Peter Bacanovic, the stockbroker who wound up on trial with Stewart, as well as her grown daughter, Alexis, and her legal team.

An NBC spokeswoman didn’t return a call and e-mail. Burnett was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Calls to Shepherd’s publicist and manager weren’t returned.