★★★★★ 0/5

History Channel cancels Kennedy miniseries

The History Channel in the US cancels plans to air a miniseries starring Greg Kinnear as President John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as his wife.

8
Leave a comment

The History Channel in the US has cancelled plans to air The Kennedys, a miniseries on the Kennedy clan declining to go into much detail as to its reasons.

“We have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand,” the network said in a statement late on Friday.

The eight-part series, starring Greg Kinnear as President John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as his wife Jackie has attracted considerable criticism for apparent inaccuracies in its script.

“We recognise historical fiction is an important medium for storytelling and commend all the hard work and passion that has gone into the making of the series, but ultimately deem this as the right programming decision for our network,” it said.

One critic was former Kennedy administration aide Theodore Sorenson. Liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald was behind a petition drive to get the movie shelved. A website, stopkennedysmears.com, was set up with a short film that attacked the miniseries.

The script included a “dramatisation” of some of the scenes, including one where President Kennedy supposedly tells his brother Robert about why he needed to have sex with different women.

It’s not clear who made the decision to pull the plug but one Disney-ABC Media Networks co-chairwoman Anne Sweeney, is also on the board of directors for the Special Olympics, the organisation started by the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, President Kennedy’s sister. Disney is one of the parent companies of A&E which owns the History Channel.

History does not control rights to the film outside of the United States and it is already scheduled to air on March 6 in Canada.

Updated: To air on ABC in 2011.

Source: Yahoo

8 Responses

  1. I’ve seen all the miniseries and read too many books. They need an accurite portrait if they want to show it. I did see something on theBio. channel but it was a documentary.

  2. @steven guy – “there isn’t anything really new to be told “. Hmm. A few good books on the subject say otherwise. Anyone who believes Oswald alone killed Kennedy call me. I’ve got a great deal going with Nigeria you may be interested in funding.

  6. I’m all for these things if they are factually correct, like our “Dismissal” and “Hawke”, etc., but opposed to what is apparently something with which writers have taken “dramatic licence” and is more fiction than fact. The real Kennedy story will emerge in about fifty years when “secret” documents are released (or earlier of WikiLeaks gets a run at it). Of course anything factually correct about who killed Kennedy – now that would be something again.

Leave a Reply