HBO Sees at Least One Big Picture (and Plenty of Shows) in Its Future

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 10

Another "Sex and the City" movie is in the works and even though they have small audiences, "In Treatment" and "Tell Me You Love Me" are back for another season because, among other things, they're cost-effective, HBO's two top programming executives said Thursday at Summer TV Press Tour 2008.

Oh, and "Deadwood"? Still dead.

HBO parent Warner Bros. and New Line have "enormous interest" in doing another "Sex and the City" film, according to HBO Programming Group President Michael Lombardo, who said the studio is "trying with our help to put that together."

He told the critics that "everybody associated with it was really heartened by the enthusiasm from the fans and by the new fans to the show."

Asked whether success of the "Sex" flick increases the likelihood of a "Sopranos" flick, HBO Co-President Richard Plepler said, "Whatever David [Chase] wants to do is totally up to David. . . . We'd be delighted."

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" will be back. For sure. Hopefully. Almost certainly, the execs said:

Larry David "has said he's coming back," Lombardo explained. "We have a deal for him to come back for another season. . . . He hasn't started shooting, but yeah, we're counting on it."

That said, the execs don't know what the next season of "Curb" will be about. "Clearly he has an idea," Lombardo said. "When he's ready to commit a hundred percent, we'll have that conversation."

The 100-day writers' strike affected HBO "significantly," Lombardo said, explaining that the network had planned to offer a new season of "Entourage" and the start of Alan Ball's vampire series, "True Blood" in the summer. "We got pushed back . . . four months on everything," he said.

Critics wanted to know why HBO did not renew its profanity spew-athon period piece "Deadwood" and -- God help us -- "John From Cincinnati" but did renew both the watch-a-shrink-talk-to- patients drama "In Treatment" and the see-troubled-couples- attempt-to-have-sex -- a lot -- drama "Tell Me You Love Me." You can see their point.