BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Fourth-place Fox got a must-needed boost from midseason hit “Empire,” but Fox Entertainment Group CEOs Gary Newman and Dana Walden said they won’t be taking a victory lap.
One hit show helps, but it can’t save a network on its own, and Fox executives have an added burden going forward: developing shows to replace “American Idol,” which will end its run after one final season that begins in January.
To that end, the network is planning for the future, ordering a pilot for a TV series based on the 1980 movie “Urban Cowboy” and developing a 10-episode sequel series to “Prison Break” starring original series leads Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell. (Miller’s character was killed off in a direct-to-DVD movie that will be ignored.) There’s also a second series from “Empire” co-creator Lee Daniels in the works: “Star” will follow three young women who form a musical group in Atlanta.
For fall, Fox debuts a TV series sequel to the 2002 movie “Minority Report” (9 p.m. Sept. 21), the new Ryan Murphy comedy-horror “Scream Queens” and two sitcoms starring famous faces.
Rob Lowe leads the cast in Fox’s “The Grinder” (8:30 p.m. Sept. 29) as Dean, a Hollywood actor who played a lawyer on TV before returning home to Boise where his family runs a law firm. Fred Savage (“The Wonder Years”) co-stars as Dean’s brother.
“It’s an outsider’s view of Hollywood,” said Savage, who returns to acting after a decade of primarily working as a director. “It’s how people outside of show business view show business.”
Lowe, whose father is a lawyer in Dayton, Ohio, said he considered becoming a lawyer before acting but, “I’m not smart enough to be an actual lawyer. I only play them on television.”
In addition to reprising his role as Uncle Jesse in Netflix’s “Fuller House,” John Stamos stars in “Grandfathered” (8 p.m. Sept. 29) as a hotshot chef who learns he has both a son and a grandchild.
“‘Full House’ was one of the early unconventional family shows and now . ‘Grandfathered’ is a very relatable, high concept unconventional family show,” Stamos said.
Once again, twin actors are playing the youngest character on the show, Jimmy’s grandchild.
“If the kids do start to cry, I whisper in their ear, I made a couple of other twins a LOT of money,” Stamos joked, referencing his “Full House” co-stars, the Olsen twins. “Stop crying, you’ll get a clothing line.”
Fox’s “Scream Queens” (8-10 p.m. Sept. 22) follows entitled, bratty sorority sister Chanel (Emma Roberts) as she battles her college’s dean (Jamie Lee Curtis) while a murderer dressed in a Red Devil costume menaces campus.
Executive producer Ryan Murphy said “Scream Queens” may share elements of the horror genre with “American Horror Story,” his FX series, but the tone is different.
“There a much more cartoonish quality to the attacks,” Murphy said. “‘American Horror Story’ is much more sexualized and darker at times.”
He credited “The Walking Dead” with bringing horror back to television and dismissed any comparisons to “Scream: The Series” on MTV. “Tonally the shows are very different,” Murphy said. “Ours is more a comedy and satirical.”
