Dallas, Get Ready for Chaos! (Maybe.)

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., May 26 2010 at 3:16 PM

Categories: City Hall, From the RTF Dept.

Freddy Rodrigurez in the Planet Terror half of Grindhouse

Patrick Michels and I are at City Hall for this afternoon's big ol' teevee announcement with the mayor and Pistol Pete. And we'll return shortly with a few choice quotes and, better still, photos. But here's the big announcement, which I tried to tease yesterday without spilling all the beans: We're adding to the pile of shows shooting here a C.I.A. procedural called Chaos, which Fox Television is producing on behalf of CBS.

Stars: Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under) and Neil Jordan fave Stephen Rea. About: "rogue CIA operatives who combat bureaucratic gridlock, rampant incompetence and political infighting." (No wonder they had the announcement at City Hall!) But it wasn't picked up at the upfronts last week, despite the fact Brett Ratner directed the pilot. Instead, it'll be a midseason replacement -- a la The Deep End, another Fox production (for ABC) that used Dallas as L.A., where the Chaos pilot was filmed in March. Here's hoping it's better than this review of the pilot script: "Besides the plot, there isn't much good there."

Mayor Tom Leppert says Dallas is "a magnet for Hollywood," as state Senator Royce West and Fox executive VP of production Jim Sharp look on.

Update at 3:32 p.m.: OK, so hold on a second. Today's press announcement was intended to be about Chaos shooting in Dallas, and it was mentioned several times throughout remarks during the conference. However, no one ever said during the press conference that Chaos would be shooting here, so afterward, I asked Jim Sharp, executive vice president of 20th Century Fox Television, what the what. To which he responded: CBS has been slow to decide if it in fact will be a mid-season pickup; he expects an announcement by the end of the week. Should CBS pick up the series, Sharp says, it will shoot in Dallas. A better explanation to follow.

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