NBC Plans ‘Big-Event’ Miniseries

Emboldened by the ratings success of its mythic productions “Merlin” and “The Odyssey,” NBC plans to produce at least eight miniseries next season, hoping such big events will stem the flow of viewers leaving the major networks.

NBC has recruited feature film talent to work on a number of the projects, many of which have a sweeping historical bent.

The miniseries include “Our Lives,” tracing the civil rights movement through Coretta Scott King, Myrlie Evers-Williams and the late Betty Shabazz--the widows of Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, respectively; “The ‘60s,” chronicling that tumultuous decade by interweaving history, fiction and music; and “USA,” in which future time travelers go back to witness their family’s history and through it the 20th century.

NBC also has more big-budget efforts in the works from “Gulliver’s Travels” producer Robert Halmi Sr., such as “Noah’s Ark,” starring Jon Voight, and a three-hour version of “Alice in Wonderland,” featuring Martin Short and Miranda Richardson, who appeared in Halmi’s “Merlin.”

NBC also will explore the life of J. Paul Getty, the patriarch of the Getty empire, and will tell the story of famed music group the Temptations.

The strategy represents a shift for NBC, which has drawn fire from critics for airing an inordinate number of what have been derisively dubbed “women in peril” movies.

ABC is also making a move into more high-profile productions, among them an unauthorized docudrama about Ronald and Nancy Reagan and an attempt to recapture the magical ratings generated by “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” with a musical based on the duo’s “South Pacific,” starring Glenn Close.

The network movie has lost both ratings and prestige in recent years, with pay channel Home Box Office winning five consecutive Emmys in that category. The exception has been CBS, whose Sunday night movie has regularly scored solid ratings, including this season’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” offerings “What the Deaf Man Heard” and “The Echo of Thunder.”

“It seemed to us very clear that the traditional made-for-television movie was not working, and we needed to do something to break through the clutter,” said Lindy DeKoven, NBC’s executive vice president of miniseries and movies for television.

NBC’s most ambitious undertaking is a proposed adaptation of the Bible that will likely run 12 hours or more. That venture, a collaboration between Halmi and director Richard Attenborough, is still in a preliminary stage and won’t be ready for next season. In the interim, Attenborough and Halmi will team on a documentary biography of Princess Diana that NBC will air later this year, marking the one-year anniversary of her death.

Among other big names associated with upcoming NBC projects is Kevin Costner, who returns to the subject matter of his Oscar-winning film, “Dances With Wolves,” as executive producer of “Not Between Brothers,” a miniseries about the founding of Texas told through two families--one white, one Native American.

Danny Glover will star in an adaptation of the Stephen Crane short story “The Monster,” and the network is preparing remakes of “The Tempest” and “Wuthering Heights.”

DeKoven acknowledged that miniseries entail a significant financial risk (“Merlin” reportedly cost at least $30 million) but added that the potential rewards are also considerable: Regularly scheduled series seldom achieve “event” status, with rare exceptions, such as Thursday’s “Seinfeld” finale or the “Ellen” coming-out episode.

Even Fox, which has only a scant presence in the made-for-TV movie arena, is trying to make some noise on that front, announcing plans to air a four-hour remake of “The Exorcist” produced by the book’s author, William Peter Blatty.

Traditionally, networks have bunched their miniseries together in November, February and May--the three key months that coincide with the rating sweeps, which local stations use to determine advertising rates. With so many projects ordered, NBC could spread a few outside of sweeps months.