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Lionsgate is looking at converting several movies into TV series — including, I’m told, the 2010 action film about a team of mercenaries. It wasn’t on CEO Jon Feltheimer’s list this morning, though, when he briefly discussed synergy plans in a conference call with Wall Street analysts following the company’s release last night of its fiscal Q4 results. Feltheimer says he’s also considering making series from Red and Step Up, film franchises acquired with the recent purchase of Summit Entertainment. Speaking of the deal, Feltheimer noted that Lionsgate’s $500M term loan to fund it “will be paid down on schedule” and its debt will be “significantly reduced.” One of the main reasons for that, of course, is the huge success of The Hunger Games. Due to the timing of the release in March at the end of the studio’s fiscal Q4, about 90% of the profits have yet to be reported. That made Feltheimer confident enough to report that Lionsgate “will generate approximately $900 million in EBITDA over the next three years.”

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EXCLUSIVE: TV action stars are getting The Expendables treatment as Sylvester Stallone’s hit feature franchise is heading to television. Fox is developing The Expendables, an event series based on the movies, with the franchise’s writer and star Stallone executive producing alongside the films’ producer Avi Lerner.

Writing/executive producing the TV adaptation are feature writing duo Greg Coolidge (Ride Along) & Kirk Ward and NCIS: LA executive producer/showrunner Shane Brennan. It is described as a fun action drama that unites iconic TV stars as a new team of highly-skilled heroes who are on a mission to stop a dangerous terrorist. The project hails from Lionsgate TV, whose feature sibling distributes The Expendables movies, and CBS TV Studios, where Brennan is under an overall deal. Also executive producing the potential event series, for which Fox has ordered a script, is Kevin King, long-time executive at Stallone’s Rogue Marble production company.

There is no cast attached or approached yet but the producers have plenty of beloved TV action stars to choose from: Walker Texas Ranger‘s Chuck Norris, who already is part of The Expendables feature franchise, 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland, Xena‘s Lucy Lawless, Alias‘ Jennifer Garner, A-Team‘s Mr. T and Strike Back‘s Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester, just to name a few.

The Expendables is among the movie titles in the Lionsgate library that the company had been eying to mine for television for some time, with the idea for a potential Expendables series first floated back in 2012.

The first three movies in The Expendables franchisee have grossed almost $800 million in the worldwide boxoffice. A fourth and fifth installment as well as a female offshoot The Expendabelles are in various stages of development.

Coolidge & Ward, repped by Paradigm and managed by Jay Froberg of ROAR, were recently tapped to script Roadrunner, an action comedy that has Scott Eastwood and Trace Adkins attached to star.

NCIS veteran Brennan, repped by Paradigm and attorney Kevin Kelly, joined the mothership series the beginning of Season 4 in 2006, taking the reins as showrunner the following season. He created spinoff NCIS: LA and ran both series for two years before focusing his attention solely on NCIS: LA.

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EXCLUSIVE: TV action stars are getting The Expendables treatment as Sylvester Stallone’s hit feature franchise is heading to television. Fox is developing The Expendables, an event series based on the movies, with the franchise’s writer and star Stallone executive producing alongside the films’ producer Avi Lerner and NCIS veteran Shane Brennan who serves as showrunner.

Writing/executive producing the TV adaptation are feature writing duo Greg Coolidge (Ride Along) & Kirk Ward and Brennan. It is described as a fun action drama that unites iconic TV stars as a new team of highly-skilled heroes who are on a mission to stop a dangerous terrorist. The project hails from Lionsgate TV, whose feature sibling distributes The Expendables movies, CBS TV Studios, where Brennan is under an overall deal, and CBSTV-based Shane Brennan Prods. Also executive producing the potential event series, for which Fox has ordered a script, are Kevin King, long-time executive at Stallone’s Rogue Marble production company, and Shane Brennan Prods.’ Grant Anderson.

There is no cast attached or approached yet but the producers have plenty of beloved TV action stars to choose from: Walker Texas Ranger‘s Chuck Norris, who already is part of The Expendables feature franchise, 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland, Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck, Xena‘s Lucy Lawless, Quantum Leap‘s Scott Bakula, Alias‘ Jennifer Garner, A-Team‘s Mr. T and Strike Back‘s Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester, just to name a few.

http://deadline.com/2015/03/expendab...ne-1201386545/

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