When I read this headline and teaser from Wine Business’s Daily news, I just had to laugh…
NBC is planning a supernatural prime time soap opera, “Vines,” set in the Napa Valley
The show, which has yet to be made into a pilot, follows a troubled family who buy a Napa Valley vineyard in hopes of a fresh start. Little do they know their “ancient vines possess dangerous mystical powers.”
It’s actually linked to the Napa Valley Register. It goes on…
The “Vines” story was originally conceived as a feature film by writer Mark Kruger, but will be adapted as a series with the help of producers Michael Aguilar of Dos Tontos production company and Takashige Ichise, who produced the original Japanese “Ring” and “Ring 2.”
Ichise has experience transforming the seemingly innocuous — formerly girls, now grapes — into something gripping and horrific.
All I could think was, “Oh come on…”
- Horror has a limited audience.
- People being diabolical will have a longer shelf life.
- Falcon Crest did it all, but I could give you a scenario I’ve had in my head for a long time, that’s more modern and might sell…
Characters:
- MALE STAR: A senior citizen, who is a cut-throat lawyer, and his latest desire it to live in wine country. He wants the status and the fame. He buys a small vineyard and cleverly gets his business partners to invest in a wine label he’s decided to create. He calls his brand the Silver Fox, because his hair is silver, he’s so crafty, and a silver fox is so rare. He’s also quite the philanderer.
- FEMALE STAR: The cut-throat lawyer meets his match in wine country, though, when a sexy, conniving baby doll decides to make him her sugar daddy. She tells him some sad tale of how her father threw her out, because her father favors her brothers. The lawyer, who’s usually really good at reading people, becomes emotionally involved; so, he feels that he must rescue her from her sorrowful plight.
- SUPPORTING ROLES:
- The lawyers business partners are so enamored with the charm of the wine business, that they fall prey to his scheme for defraying his own costs. As it evolves, they lose copious amounts of their own money, but they don’t really care. They all sit around the board room and discuss that it’s a great tax write off for something that’s so much fun. Not one of them has studied wine, viticulture, or marketing, so this makes the story unfold as the blind leading the blind. Consequently, each year they fire and then hire a new winemaker, causing havoc with their wine’s consistency. They’re so out of tune with marketing, in fact, that they don’t even know that they’re being led by someone who is also so naive about the wine business. The partners are brought along like blind sheep to the slaughter.
- The family of the cut-throat lawyer has realized that this voluptuous babe is more dangerous than the others their father has kept around the ranch. They’re constantly, behind the cut-throat lawyer’s back, trying to find a way to get their father’s partners to craft a prenuptial agreement that they can introduce to their father. But, the partners are also so smitten with the much younger, gorgeous babe that they’re also totally blinded by her beauty and conniving ways… while their money continues to slip away from them all.
Now, wouldn’t that one be more fun to follow than grapes that are possessed and sucking people into their clusters, while the people swirl around are trying to fend off becoming raisins?
Oh… maybe it’s just the same thing on two differing planes of reality.
Never mind. My bad…
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NBC is planning a supernatural prime time soap opera, “Vines,” set in the Napa Valley |
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The show, which has yet to be made into a pilot, follows a troubled family who buy a Napa Valley vineyard in hopes of a fresh start. Little do they know their “ancient vines possess dangerous mystical powers.” |
You forgot another character: the devastatingly handsome, brilliant young wine critic!
Good one, Steve.
We can build on this. I’ve got some really kookie neighbors, too. She, a dog breeder. He, also taken in by his gorgeous wife’s beauty. She brings in her brothers to run their wine company, and makes the guys’ lives miserable, while she lives under the knife.
They all party together.
Jo, you start with an incorrect premise: “Horror has a limited audience.”
Have you looked up any numbers on that theory?
FYI, you really need to see the original “Ring,” your reference to it and Ichise is incorrect.
Personally I expect the NBC series will suck because more than 95% of broadcast network series suck (yes, you can run the numbers on that: count the number of new series introduced each year and the number that don’t suck.)
But I’m a horror far (can you tell?) and I’ll watch it. “Ring” was a great movie. Don’t knock what you haven’t seen. That would be like me knocking a wine I haven’t tasted.
Blake… Nice to see you pop up here.
Maybe it’s just my circle of friends, but horror is limited. Maybe I just run with a different crowd and not goth… Goth is very artsy, and the main population is not artsy… The masses are into blow ’em up, eat ’em up, and not so much suck ’em up (in their necks, that is).
Yes, there’s an audience for it, but I still believe that it’s limited.
I wouldn’t go see Ring, any more than you’d got see a film on birthing. It’s personal preference. That’s why salt and pepper sit on the same table.
I’m fine knocking it, because I detest the dark side… Just me, just my opinion, and I’m entitled, as are we all. ;^)