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Between them, they have nearly a century’s worth of TV programming experience, and were part of a generation of Home Box Office management which helped turn company into the premier subscription television service not only in the U.S., but in the world. Their longevity has given them the opportunity to live through their company’s change from a raucously-growing enterprise to a mature business, evolving from what had primarily been a movie service to a programmer just as identified with such acclaimed, high-profile original programming as The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, True Blood, and, most recently, Boardwalk Empire.

Still, they have spent most of their professional lives dealing with movies. A production executive at a major studio might deal with two dozen released films a year. Programmers at HBO (and its sister channel Cinemax) easily deal with over a thousand. They appraise them, try to understand what people...

Cinemax has given a series order to "Femme Fatales," a late-night program that will showcase noir-style mysteries with strong female leads, according to the Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed.

The show will have a "strong erotic quality," but not fall into the "Skinemax"-type programming that the channel is known for.

"We have an opportunity to tell some sexy and thrilling stories that all have powerful women," says Bob Conte, senior vp creative affairs.

The show's co-creator and co-executive producer Mark A. Altman ("Castle") says the show will feature a mysterious narrator, sort of "a sexy Rod Serling" from "The Twilight Zone," and they hope that the show will attract different big name directors who want to tell stand-alone mysteries.

Here's our short list for the narrators, leads and directors:

Narrator

A sexy yet buttoned-up weekly guide into the noir world of femme fatales? Our top choices are "Mad Men" star...

Because the Leonard Chess biopic Who Do You Love was shelved for more than a year to steer clear of the rival project Cadillac Records, the movie can’t help but feel like an also-ran. And it doesn’t help that Who Do You Love director Jerry Zaks and screenwriters Peter Martin Wortmann and Robert Conte crib so many of their moves from the well-thumbed biopic playbook. We see young Polish immigrant brothers Leonard and Phil Chess learn how to say “motherfucker” from a Chicago street musician. We see one of Chess Records’ biggest superstars introduced with a casual, “Friends ...

Opening on April 6, in limited release, is director Jerry Zaks’ Who Do You Love. The movie is the story of legendary record producer Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records, the label that helped popularize Blues music during the 1950s and ’60s.

To help promote the film, we’ve been given the poster to premiere, so hit the jump to check it out. We’ve also posted the full synopsis and cast list.

“Who Do You Love” is a great snapshot of the era in which the music that was to become the foundation of Rock & Roll was created. The music, the cars, the clothes, and the many amazing characters of my childhood are brought to life in this film, which also gives a taste of the many roads travelled by my family to make Chess Records one of the greatest record labels of all time.”

– Marshall Chess

Here’s the...

Alessandro Nivola, David Oyelowo and Jon Abrahams will sail the musical waters together in the feature biopic Chess. Jerry Zaks is directing.

The story chronicles the life of Leonard Chess (Nivola), a self-made music impresario and renowned record company executive who brought blues into the public eye and jump-started the careers of some of the music industry's biggest names, including Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry.

Oyelowo will play Waters, while Abrahams will play Phil Chess, Leonard's younger brother who worries when Leonard becomes involved with a singer who has been signed to their label.

The film will compete against Sony BMG Film's Cadillac Records, which also centers on the rise and fall of Chess' blues label Chess Records. That film stars Adrien Body and Jeffrey Wright and is set to begin production in March.

The script for Chess was penned by Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte and is being produced by Jonathan Mitchell, Les Alexander and Andrea Baynes through Checkmate Prods.

In a pre-emptive bid, Regency Enterprises is in negotiations to pick up feature film rights to the graphic novel Hammer of the Gods, with veteran writing duo Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte attached to script in a deal worth mid- against high-six figures. David Engel and David Alpert at Circle of Confusion will produce the project, which Regency hopes to bring to the big screen as a summer tentpole, sources said. It's described as a fantasy project similar to The Lord of the Rings but adding in Norse mythology with a contemporary twist. It follows a 21-year-old man who one day learns that he is fated to save another world -- the Norse world. If he fails, that world will fail, and evil will bleed into the present day.