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This TV drama series is an American creation. The Newsroom creator and writer is Aaron Sorkin. In Australia, it premiered on August 20th of 2012 on Soho/Foxtel. This series chronicles some of the events taking place behind the scenes at the ACN (Atlantis Cable News) channel. It features an excellent cast with actors the likes of Will McAvoy and Jeff Daniels, who set out along with the staff to put out a news show that flew right in the face of commercial and corporate obstacles as well as their own personal plights and entanglements.
Some other cast members are:
• Dev Patel
• Alison Pill
• Olivia Munn
• Thomas Sadoski
• Sam Waterston
Sorkin is the one who created 'The West Wing'. This was a very successful Emmy Award winner. It was a political drama. It was reported that Sorkin had been working on developing a TV drama centered around cable news since back in 2009. After many months of negotiating, HBO ordered the pilot in January of 2011. Then in September of 2011 they ordered a full series.
Sorkin researched his series by watching several of the real-world cable TV programs firsthand. Sorkin along with Scott Rudin and Alan Poul are the executive producers. The Newsroom series has confirmed being renewed for its second season that premieres in June of 2013.
The series unfolds behind-the-scenes of a fictional ACN (Atlantis Cable News). It is centered around the anchor Will McAvoy (Daniels), along with the new executive producer MacKenzie McHale (Mortimer), and the entire newsroom staff consisting of:
• Jim (Gallagher, Jr.)
• Neal (Patel)
• Maggie (Pill)
• Don (Sadoski)
• Sloan (Munn)
• Charlie Skinner (Waterston)
The entire set is located in Hollywood at the Sunset Gower Studios. However, the fictional building for Atlantis World Media is in fact the actual Bank of America tower located on 6th avenue/42nd street over in Manhattan. It sits straight across the street from the New York City offices of HBO. They use CGI to change the building's name over the entrance.
Production started in 2011 in the Fall. The schedule was set for a grueling 9 day filming rather than the six to seven for broadcasting the TV Network series.
Jeff Daniels ended up being cast into the lead role. This took place in March of 2011. Negotiations for starring in the series began for Olivia Munn and Alison Pill in April of 2011.
The role of fictional executive producers was offered first to Marisa Tomei. However, those negotiations fell through. Marisa was then replaced by Emily Mortimer in the month of May in 2011.
Sam Waterston joined this project in the month of May as well. John Gallagher, Jr. along with Josh Pence, Thomas Sadoski, and Dev Patel all got added into the cast in the month of June in 2011.
New York magazine put out a report stating that Sorkin had planned to have Andrew Breitbart along with MSNBC host Chris Mathews appear in an interesting round-table debate scene for the pilot. This idea got shot down by the network of MSNBC. They were not pleased with the way cable news culture would be portrayed as being bearing off to the left and catering to a left-leaning media.
Three months after The Newsroom got picked up it was Jane Fonda who signed up to play character of the CEO of the parent company of this fictional network named 'Leona Lansing'. Fonda is well-known as being married to Ted Turner (founder of CNN and Turner Broadcasting System) for ten years.
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