Ashley
Madison's infidelity business a saucy pitch for
Hollywood
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[August 27, 2015]
By Piya Sinha-Roy
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
Even before the details of millions of users of
infidelity website Ashley Madison were hacked and leaked
to the public, a television show based on the dating
site for married people was being shopped around
Hollywood.
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"Thank You Ashley Madison," a series concept based on a woman
who signs up to the website, is being pitched to networks by Los
Angeles-based OutEast Entertainment, the company's senior vice
president of development, Courtney Hazlett, said on Wednesday.
OutEast Entertainment made a deal in 2014 with Avid Life Media
Inc, the parent company of Ashley Madison, to use the website's
name in the television show with the hopes of drawing some of
the site's 37 million clients to watch the series.
The concept for the show would focus on a woman "who has a
different vision for what marriage might look like in modern
day," Hazlett said. She likened it to HBO's series
"Togetherness," which takes a realistic look at a modern day
couple navigating married life.
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"There's a number of women in this position too, it's not all
about men, it's a turning point in marriage," she said.
"Justified" scriptwriter Jennifer Kennedy will co-write the
series with Ian MacDonald. Hazlett declined to say which
networks the show is being pitched to and whether any deals are
close to being made.
After a hacker group breached the Ashley Madison website and
published details of the site's clients last week - some of
which included email addresses of U.S. government officials -
the attack has sparked extortion attempts and at least two
possible suicides, according to Toronto police.
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Former reality star and family values campaigner Josh Duggar of
TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" was forced to apologize for cheating on
his wife after his details were uncovered in the data leak. Duggar
entered rehab this week..
Since last week's hack, Hazlett said there's been more interest in
the project.
"When we started shopping this around, the first comment we were
getting was 'are you kidding me? That many people are using site?"
But it's definitely now not that," she said.
(This version of the story was corrected to show Hazlett is senior
vice president of development division not company in paragraph 2,
in paragraph 4 removes "divorced" from character description and in
paragraph 6 changes Kennedy to co-writer from writer and adds
Macdonald.)
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Christian Plumb)
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