Search Results for: Dick Wolf

“Chicago Justice” is now officially the fourth series in the NBC/Dick Wolf “Chicago” franchise, making Chicago the production center for what will be eight TV series by fall. Wednesday night’s backdoor episode on “Chicago PD” introducing the “Chicago Justice” characters drew 6.8 million total viewers.

The show stars Philip Winchester (“Strike Back”) as the lead prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office; Carl Weathers (“Rocky”) as the D.A., Nazneen Contractor (“Heroes Reborn”) and Joelle Carter (“Justified”) on the D.A. staff.

“Chicago” television franchise producer Dick Wolf was surprised and pleased last Tuesday when he was presented with the highest honor a film industry union can — and rarely does — bestow upon a non-union member.

Wolf received Local 476’s Honorary Lifetime Membership Gold Card “gratefully bestowed upon the bearer,” from union president Brad Matthys and business manager Mark Hogan.

Back in the day, before “Law & Order” and multiple other Dick Wolf police dramas became household names, Wolf was in advertising.  He was a copywriter on National Airlines, an account his agency was about to lose.  His boss ordered him to “go try to sell them something new.” 

“Law and Order’s” Dick Wolf, who’s here filming two NBC TV shows will be the keynote speaker at Sunday’s Chicago Film and Media Summit & Expo at the Cultural Center at 5 p.m.  But be forewarned – his speech is open for registrants only so sign up to attend now.

If 2016 was considered a great year for the Chicago media and entertainment business, 2017 is starting to shape up as even greater. It could even be the year when the Chicago market eases into $1 billion revenue from film status.

Thanks to Dick Wolf / NBC Universal and to Fox TV, six primetime TV series currently film here at Cinespace Studios, with three new TV series expected to start production in early February.

STARTING JULY 20, Chicago’s film industry will take off like a rocket as NBC/Dick Wolf’s three primetime series — “Chicago Fire,” “PD” and “Med” — all begin shooting their new fall seasons on Cinespace stages.

By mid-September, eight TV series will be filming here. Cameras will roll for Fox TV’s hit “Empire” and new Fox entries, “The Exorcist” Aug. 3 and “ABP” Aug. 22. NBC’s “Chicago Justice” is scheduled to start for mid-September airing.

There will be more than one doctor in the house when NBC’s “Chicago Med” series settles into Chicago this summer to film alongside two Dick Wolf’s two other Chicago-set series at Cinespace.

“Chicago Med,” the talked about third panel of Dick Wolf’s popular “Chicago” triptych, is looming as a sure thing as seven new characters will be introduced in “Chicago Fire.”

The Chicago film industry got a nice surprise Wednesday when NBC Universal announced early renewals of Dick Wolf Films’ “Chicago Fire” and “Chi

In no uncertain terms, Sunday’s Film Summit & Expo was a rousing success – and a somewhat surprising one given the short time frame the organizers had for assembling the parts that made it so successful: the 1,000 professionals attendees, out of 1,500 who registered. The SRO panel discussions.  Dick Wolf’s candid speech.  The crowded roomful of exhibitors.

Chicago talent is absolutely ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille. 

Seven TV series and two features (to date) rolling into production now through the next three months will give local performers their best shot ever at TV and movie roles without having to leave town.

The first season of Dick Wolf’s NBC “Chicago Fire” generated more than 300 days of work for local actors during its first 22 episode-season.

TV pilot frenzy is underway in L.A., with networks and cable stations having greenlit more than 75 pilots for the 2013-14 television season. 

While two of those 75-plus pilots have landed in Chicago thus far, Local 476’s Mark Hogan is confident about several others filming here – mainly two pilots for ABC and Dick Wolf’s NBC comedy, “Girlfriend in a Coma,” that, if picked up for a series, could efficiently piggyback on “Chicago Fire’s” established facility and resources here.

Good news for Chicago entertainment production! NBC Universal not unexpectedly ordered a full season of Dick Wolf’s “Chicago Fire.”  The series will start shooting in mid-July and “will go at least through to the end of year and possibly into the spring of 2013,” says Chicago Film Office director Rich Moskal.

The series is set to air on NBC this fall.  

NBC’s “Chicago Fire” about the firefighters and paramedics at the firehouse of Engine 51, marked the airing of its 100th episode last week and with it, a high economic milestone for the Chicago film industry.

The show currently ranks as NBC’s second highest-rated series behind Tuesday night’s ensemble drama, “This is Us.”

Ratings have gone up from year-to-year. The Dec. 6 episode captured 7.774 million viewers, which certainly has to have a positive effect on tourism. And the odds are definitely in favor of a sixth season for the show.

IF YOU LOVED JOHN HUGHES’ MOVIES you’ll be especially engrossed in the first book ever written about the “philosopher of adolescence,” as Roger Ebert once called him. Jason Diamond, who like Hughes was a North Shore native and suffered painful teen years, has authored “Searching For John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from Watching 80s’Movies.”

Recording company BAM Studios, a major provider of ADR to many of the network TV series and Hollywood features filming here, has opened its fifth ADR studio at Cinespace, after a summer of construction.

When LA-based VER (Video Equipment Rentals) opens a 94,000-sf. ft. branch in Southwest suburban McCook in November, the Chicago film industry will boast its largest film and AV equipment rental facility to date.

Construction has begun on VER’s massive, single story warehouse and office facility it’s leasing at 8401 W. 47th St. in the McCook enterprise zone, less than a mile from the I-55 interchange.

Fox Television announced that two of its four dramatic pilots that filmed in Chicago this winter were greenlit for series production. While not officially stated, there’s strong reason to expect new series will return to Chicago.

“That would be extraordinarily good news,” notes Chicago Film Office director Rich Moskal. “This surge of activity points to the quality of our crews, talent and facilities and Chicago’s ability to be a major player in episodic television.”

“Chicago Fire” creators Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, who created the franchise, have signed a deal with Universal TV, the studio producing the multi Chicago-set series.

Under the pact they will continue to be executive producers of “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med” and also on the “Chicago Justice,” the backdoor pilot that airs as episode 21 of “Chicago PD’s” third season airing in May.

Cinespace continues to expand — this time with the conversion of two former massive “Boss” sets into office space to accommodate the Fox TV staff moving in for the upcoming production of three Fox pilots.

Fox TV is back in Chicago for another pilot season.  The network has ordered three exciting one-hour pilots to be produced here from March through April – one more than the network filmed here in 2015.

Amazon Studios will be in filming in Chicago this year in a big way, starting with an indie feature starring Charlise Theron filming in part at Chicago Studio City, followed by Steve Conrad’s thriller/dramady series at Cinespace.

There’s no third season shooting in Chicago for USA Network’s quirky comedy half-hour “Sirens” series about a group of paramedics in Chicago.

OLIVER PLATT (“The Big C”) is the latest lead actor to join the ensemble cast of “Chicago Med,” the upcoming planted spinoff series of “Chicago Fire.” He will play the intelligent head of psychiatry, Dr. Daniel Charles, while S.

DICTIONARY FILMS’DIRECTORS’ ROSTER expanded with duo Eric McCoy and Justus Meyer, aka McCoy|Meyer, raising the number of directors to eight.  The Columbia College grads, 2005 and 2011, respectively, who have been working together since 2012, are based in Los Angeles. 

By midpoint this year, Chicago production had come close to the number of shooting days it had enjoyed during 2013’s record-breaking run, reports the Chicago Film Office’s Rich Moskal. “At the end of June we had issued 638 permits to shoot on city streets, as compared to 650 last year,” he says.

NOTHING HAD BEEN HEARD from executive producer Michael Antonnuci since December, 2012, when he departed from Utopic, the production/post company he had co-founded three years earlier, a change that was attributed to a “restructuring” of the spot production division.

A fitting program to herald the Independent Feature Project/Midwest’s (IFP) return after a long absence is Sunday’s “75 Minutes with Dylan Baker,” the veteran actor – now turned indie director, who is here filming “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago PD.”

Chicago’s pilot season starts off with some of the biggest names in the entertainment business scheduled to shoot here. Fox Television has greenlighted “Empire,” a drama from “The Butler’s” team of executive producer/director Lee Daniels and writer Danny Strong.

“Empire” will headquarter at Cinespace and shoot for 12-13 days in mid-to-late March.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Nick Mirkopoulos, the late owner of Cinespace Studios, was a proponent of Chicago’s motto, “Make no little plans.”

Thanks to his meticulous planning for the company’s future, Cinespace Chicago will seamlessly continue to host major entertainment projects – and grow to become the biggest studio complex in the world.

ENTERTAINMENT FILMING has begun in earnest with action on features and TV series from now through October.  Although teen sci-fi “Divergent” wraps July 17 after a large second unit shoot, The Wachowskis’ sci-fi epic “Jupiter Ascending” officially starts rolling July 13. It will film at Cinespace and on many locations around the city.

With five high-profile network TV shows set for filming here, alongside three mega-budget features, so far, 2013 should be the state’s highest grossing year ever – an estimated $225 million — in its nearly 40 years of hosting Hollywood entertainment projects. 

“CHICAGO FIRE” EXECS – show co-creator/EP Michael Brandt and EP/director Joe Chappelle – will present the top awards to the winners of the Best of Midwest Awards Tuesday, Dec. 4 – an event that is totally sold out! Two other special guests are “Chicago Fire” star Lauren German and “Liberal Arts” producer Claude Dal Farra.

Tremendous progress in elevating Cinespace Studios as the central core of Chicago’s film infrastructure in just 14 months, since Gov. Pat Quinn cut the studio’s opening ceremonial ribbon on the “Boss” TV series set last May.