CBS Television is the latest in an ever-increasing number of television studios that are paying actors for pilots that were unable to be further produced into shows due to COVID-19, via Deadline. CBS studios boast TV favorites such as Survivor, NCIS, The Good Fight, and Hawaii Five-0. Along with CBS, studios who have paid cast members for pilots include Disney TV Studios, Warner Bros. TV, Universal TV.
According to Deadline, the actors will be paid half of what they were promised now, and will receive the other half at the end of the year if the shows have not started on production. If the studios need yet another extension, then the actors will be paid another sum equivalent to half of what they were originally promised to account for their commitment to the production of their respective shows.
The unfortunate shows that CBS has halted production on include Clarice (written and produced by Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman), The Equalizer (written and produced by Andrew Marlowe and Terri Miller), and The Lincoln Lawyer (written and produced by David E. Kelly). Clarice is a crime drama series set in 1993 after the events of the movie, The Silence of the Lambs, and follows FBI agent Clarice Starling through her dealings with serial killers and sexual predators.
Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in Jonathan Demme’s ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
While awareness of the show is very low due to the fact that it does not have any social media and CBS has not mentioned explicitly in any of its own social media accounts, this drama, as well as the others on which CBS has halted production, is not any less promising than if there wasn’t a pandemic.
Both Lumet and Kurtzman are both experienced industry professionals who worked on The Man Who Fell to Earth and are expanding the Star Trek universe. Kurtzman is also an executive producer on Hawaii Five-0.