BIG-NAME LOSERS
AMIDST all the good news leaking out about what series networks have picked up for the fall season, there have been a few surprise snubs for big-name actors who shot pilots for potential new series earlier this year.
* Donald Sutherland (“Dirty Sexy Money”) was hoping that “The Eastmans,” about a dysfunctional family of doctors would catch on, but CBS wasn’t buying him as a roguish cardiologist at the head of another wealthy family.
* Richard Dreyfuss went home sad when CBS failed to pick up the comedy “Happiness Isn’t Everything,” in which Dreyfuss was set to play a lovingly pushy patriarch in a family that’s too involved in each other’s personal lives.
* Hot on the heels of “Trust Me’s” cancellation, Eric McCormack got cast in the ABC pilot, “Best Thing Ever,” as half of a buddy comedy about a 40-year-old who’s about to be a new dad.
* Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls”) also had no joy at ABC with her comedy pilot, “Let It Go,” where she would’ve played a self-help expert who doesn’t follow her own advice.
* Neither David E. Kelley nor Kristen Chenoweth (“Pushing Daisies”) could make “Legally Mad” — where she would’ve started as brilliant, but screwed up lawyer at her daddy’s law firm — work at NBC.
