Friends with Benefits

"Friends with Benefits" was a telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial. It was based on a popular Latin American series.

Story

Christine Summers, a 50-year-old African-American natural beauty, was a long-time resident of Crystal Cove, a southern Florida cove. She had simple tastes and a passion for her restaurant, which her mother started thirty years ago. She worked hard to instill her string values in her daughter Amanda. After refusing to sell her property to a group of greedy developers, she turned up dead.

Amanda is a small-town girl. Yet with nowhere else to turn, she commences on a journey into a dangerous new world: the glistening Mecca of South Beach. She dives into the sexy and seductive nightlife scene to track her mother's killer.

With her natural beauty and charm, Amanda takes South Beach by storm, and becomes the focal point of a volatile love triangle between two of South Beach's most eligible bachelors: Derek Hawk and Richard Westley. Derek is a nightclub impresario -- and his father is the lead suspect in the murder of Amanda's mother. His rival, Richard, is a powerful and successful attorney who shares a turbulent history with the Hawk family. Amanda finds herself tangled in a web of lies, cover-ups and yet more murder. [http://www.auditions.com/display_casting4.php?casting_id=76162&s=]

Development

Originally, MyNetworkTV planned to run the serial for 65 hour-long episodes, airing weekday evenings, with a recap on Saturdays. It was to be filmed at Stu Segall Productions in San Diego.

The show began pre-production on January 8, 2007, with directors Dennis Dimster, Jeff Fischer, Mitch Marcus and Jeremy Stanford, and filming of the first 20 episodes was to start in April. [http://newsok.com/article/3154291/1193101946] It was set to premiere on June 5, 2007 -- and casting calls were sent out [http://neaat.wordpress.com/2007/02/02/casting-breakdowns-for-feb-1st/] -- but production was postponed. Jean-Pierre Parent was cast as Pierre, a gay French photographer. MyNetworkTV's March 1, 2007 announcement that it stopped developing scripted content spelled an end for both the series and the network's slate of telenovelas. [ [http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11637 TVWeek.com ~ "MyNetwork TV: No More Scripted"] , "TV Week", March 1, 2007]

Other "Friends"

"Friends with Benefits" was also the title of episode 108 of "Fashion House", a previous MyNetworkTV telenovela, which aired on September 14, 2006. [http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch.aspx?id=fashion_house&view=listings]

References