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It would appear that ABC wants to have Ugly Betty around for a while. Not too long after renewing Ugly Betty for a third season, ABC Studios locked down showrunner Silvio Horta with a lucrative 2-year contract. The pact was described by Variety as “mid six figure”.
The deal will also give him the opportunity to develop new projects for the Disney-owned studio.
It’s good to know there aren’t any hard feelings remaining over the WGA strike, in which Horta was quite outspoken.
Horta was the key in adapting Columbian telenovela “Yo Soy Betty La Fea” for American audiences. He was the man to whom Salma Hayek and Ben Silverman turned to find the proper way to present the show to American sensibilities. We all know he succeeded quite well.
“Silvio is a tremendously gifted writer,” Hayek said. “He knows how to mix comedy and drama in a way that very few writers do. He took the premise of the original Colombian soap opera and made `Ugly Betty’ his own. Anyone lucky enough to work with him would kill to do it again.”
Horta told Variety something I find VERY interesting. He said that the show will go back to focusing more and more on Betty. Horta has even written the word “heart” in big letters in the writers room, in order to emphasize the need to bring the stories back to the underdog spirit of Betty. I have no doubt that the sacking of producers Marco Pennette and James Hayman was related. They are going to focus the show back on its biggest strength.
If this is true, this is good news indeed. The best episodes of Ugly Betty are the ones in which she is the underdog, and the moral center in what is a crazy, cutthroat world. I can’t wait!
Congratulations Silvio!
906 days ago
I am so so glad to hear that!
I really wanted Ugly Betty to go back to its roots. The show was becoming either too lovey-dovey with Benrey, too dramatic or too unrealistic. I also beleive that ever since the wedding episode, America’s acting took a tole.
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906 days ago
Of course, I don’t see anything wrong with Benry…but I do agree that I loved last season quite a bit more than this season….
I am glad Betty will come back into focus. :]
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904 days ago
[...] Disney-owned ABC studios signed Ugly Betty’s Silvio Horta to a two-year contract. It was reported that the deal was a “mid six figure” and that [...]
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486 days ago
Oh yes! The show went a through a really botched run last season after Bradford died. That should have been kept for the season finale. It was a sweeps episode I understand but it was too soon IMHO after Santos was shot. How could they dare to compound Betty’s tragedy like that? On top of that, they didn’t even really get to shape Gio before then. He was only in like one or two episodes. Who knows if that guy wouldn’t have been a good protegee for Bradford to use as a go-getter example for his …erm, boys? That would have re-established a Santos-ish character and further developed what Bradford saw in Betty’s future when she showed the gumption, will to succeed by applying in the first episode. He knew that if he didn’t get her, someone like Elle would or Fabia. We never got to wrap our minds around Bradford’s character. The guy who shaped Mode magazine and Meade empire. Most of his time was caught up trying to clear his and Claire’s name after Wilhemina and Alexis divvied up the company between themselves. Perhaps he was suave like Captain Kirk or James Bond? A lowdown snake in the grass like JR Ewing? At least Tommy Boy got to hear his dad mention a T-Bone steak and Bull’s ass in the same sentence. That too is part of the Ugly Betty heart. Its her Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic. How can her heart go on if its never lit up to begin with? To not have such is manufactured sabotage akin to Ellen making every post-”out” episode a 30 minute bash-you-with-an-acme hammer (Donk! Biff! Pow!) running gag when she was on ABC. That’s what makes me wonder if UB wasn’t meant at first to be a novelty for stoned suburbanites to point fingers and chuckle about. Sorry guys to them but we saw who laughed last at the awards shows in early 2007. Isn’t it eerie how Bradford died on the show during one of the last episodes before writer’s strike and by the time UB returned after, Heath Ledger (also an Aussie actor) had died? That ain’t a joke from the Hello Deli to me.
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486 days ago
Just wondering…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymu-tESS6zA
Is this what people are afraid of?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ZmUKBgwqg
or this?
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