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They plan to make the classic show—laid to rest five years ago—attractive to network buyers, through major reconstructive surgery.
HBO began knocking on doors last week, offering an all-cash deal for 175 refurbished episodes of the documentary-style series about unsolved crimes and paranormal occurrences.
During its 1987-97 NBC run, the program, with its overly dramatic narrative by the late Robert Stack, helped give rise to the ripped-from-the-headlines reality (America's Most Wanted) and scripted (Law & Order, CSI) crime procedural formats still the rage today.
HBO is taking out the series without a host, believed to be a first, and will leave it up to the acquiring cable network to choose Robert Stack's replacement, according to Scott Carlin, president of HBO's distribution wing.
Work is under way to expand the number of unsolved evergreen stories from four to five per episode, each cut down to a maximum of seven minutes. Cosgrove/Meurer and HBO are choosing their material from 900 hours of footage shot for the original 255 episodes.
They also plan to add newly produced updates—the most popular segments of the original series—that will focus on the solving of crimes and shedding new light on cold cases, which make up 60% of the stories, according to Executive Producer John Cosgrove.
Other additions include a new set, logo, music and, most important, the computerized effects needed to bring the stories up to current standards.
Carlin and Cosgrove say that new weekly original episodes are also a distinct possibility and could come as part of the initial deal or at some point later.
And Carlin trumpets the new-media possibilities provided by the show's shorter stories, which he says “perfectly lend themselves” to appearing on a revenue-generating Website. Cosgrove is looking toward the Internet as a way to get text-messaged tips from viewers.
The sales campaign for Mysteries marks the first time HBO's distribution unit has joined with outside producers on a basic-cable or syndication project. But it won't be the last: Carlin's group is negotiating to distribute other fare that he declines to disclose.
With HBO's model of providing short runs to original primetime series, Carlin says, “we don't have the same at-bats [as broadcast networks do], so we're looking at opportunistic improvisation” to keep the distribution pipeline full.
The idea of putting an entirely new wrapping on Mysteries proved attractive to Carlin and Cerio,with most of the segment production already complete