History Network pulls plug on Kennedy miniseries Show Tracker Los Angeles Times

The Kennedys may have not one left serving on Capitol Hill, yet the family still has ample clout to keep a miniseries about their political empire from disscusion in the United States.

In a statement, the History Channel said it has decided not air "The Kennedys," an eight-part miniseries about the family that starred Greg Kinnear for President John F. Kennedy, Katie Holmes as his wife Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy and Barry Pepper for his brother Bobby Kennedy. 

"While the film is produced and deeded with the maximum quality, afterward outlooking the terminal product in its totality,Harry's Law, we have concluded this thespian interpretation is not a fit for the History brand," the network said in a statement. 

The History Channel had not set a appointment for the miniseries to air. It was expected to run afterward this spring, and is scheduled to premiere in March in Canada.

The care from both the Kennedy family and their associates about this miniseries from Joel Surnow, a inventor of the Fox behavior show "24,Trackor Tom," was no mystery. Heavy lobbying by the family and friends of the family played a key character in getting the project yanked, people close to the situation said.

People close apt the Kennedys got their hands on an early script because the agenda and quickly blasted it. The late Theodore Sorensen, a senior advisor to President Kennedy, called the chart he saw a "one-sided right-wing script" that was "vindictive" and "spiteful" in a short movie about the project made by Robert Greenwald, a documentary filmmaker.  Some human even managed to penetrate the premier few incidents of the completed agenda.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late president, also made an effort to get the project stopped in its pathways. She lobbied Anne Sweeney, a top television executive at Walt Disney Co., an of the three companies that co-owns History Channel. The other two companies that own the network are NBC Universal and Hearst Corp.

Kennedy has knots to both Sweeney and Disney. She has a paperback deal with Disney's publishing unit Hyperion, which is set to issue a book of previously unreleased interviews with the late Jacqueline Kennedy this fall. Caroline Kennedy namely to edit and jot the introduction for the writing, and is presumable to help promote it.

On a extra private level, Sweeney is on the board of the Special Olympics, which was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the president's sister.

Maria Shriver, the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, also has connections to NBC Universal, having had a long relationship with the corporation as a correspondent and fasten for NBC News.

Although History Channel has passed on the project, it will atmosphere somewhere around the world and could find a current home in the United States ought different television channel buffet a deal with the producers, Aslyum Entertainment and Muse Entertainment.

In a statement, the two companies said, "We are proud of the work all of our genius put into the production of The Kennedys and the painstaking exertions that went into creating a screenplay that is compelling when wealthy in historic elaborate. Although we rue this does not appropriate into the History Channel’s maneuvers, we are confident that television viewers in the United States ambition connect viewers from around the world in having an opportunity to watch this series in the near future."

History Channel likewise has sister webs it could sprint the catena on including Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network. However, it seems that the parent companies of all those channels are looking to push on antagonism all the money provided in the project.

This is not the first period a political family was proficient to argue a network to not run a program. Several annuals ago, the Reagan home and friends of the former president were instrumental in obtaining CBS to not carry its movie about his life. It did finally run on Showtime, the pay cord channel that is in far less families.

-- Joe Flint