Sopranos Producers Seal Paramount TV Deal

Emmy-Winners Burgess and Green to Develop Projects for CBS and More

Robin Green (l) and Mitchell Burgess (r), pictured above with David Chase (c) at the 55th Annual Emmy Awards in 2003, have signed a lucrative development deal with Paramount Network Television. The pair and Chase took home Emmys for Outstanding Writing for a Drama for their work on The Sopranos.

Los Angeles, CA – Writer-producers Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green, widely regarded for their Emmy-winning efforts with The Sopranos for HBO, recently sealed a lucrative development deal with Paramount Network Television.

The three-year deal, which is said to loom high into seven-figures, sees Burgess and Green developing projects for Paramount and leaves them free to develop for other entities. Cultivating properties for CBS, however, will likely be the duo's first focus. 

Burgess said that they two will take time to explore ideas. Green told the Hollywood Reporter that this is the first time they have had such an "incredible opportunity to develop things with people who have so much to offer us in terms of talent and support."  

Having garnered tremendous success with The Sopranos, where the two served as executive producers with David Chase, Burgess and Green were said to have been heavily courted by Paramount Net TV head David Stapf and CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler. Burgess and Green worked with Chase in the early 1990s when they made their first splash as television writers, working on CBS's offbeat drama Northern Exposure.

Stapf lauded the "high level of intelligence" Burgess and Green bring to their work. "They write with great depth, and there's always a lot of comedy with their pathos," he said. "Their storytelling expertise," Tassler added,"is virtually unparalleled."

Burgess and Green, a married couple as well as successful writing team, picked up Emmy awards for drama writing in 2001 and 2003 for The Sopranos. In 2004, the series itself won the nod for best drama.