Will The Kennedys find a home? The question is swirling around Hollywood in the wake of A&E Television Networks’ surprise Jan. 8 decision to pull the plug on the lavish eight-part miniseries, which was set to air on History in the spring.
AETN canceled plans to broadcast the controversial miniseries — executive produced by conservative 24 co-creator Joel Surnow and starring Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes — amid intense behind-the-scenes pressure from the Kennedy family (particularly Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver), whose members had lobbied AETN execs and board members including Disney’s Anne Sweeney and NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker and Jeff Gaspin to kill the project since it was announced in December 2009. Producers Muse Entertainment and Asylum Entertainment are now free to shop the project to another U.S. network, but the same concerns that kept the project off History might make finding a new buyer more difficult.
