NBC hopes to get us hooked on Smoking

Thank You for Smoking, the independent movie satire about a superstar spin doctor that got a big boost from a controversial Katie Holmes nude scene, is being spun into a series on NBC.

In the movie, Nick Naylor, played by Aaron Eckhart, represented big tobacco. The single camera series will have Naylor running his own PR firm, with lots of politically-incorrect clients like fast-food chains, environmental polluters and corrupt politicians. As in the movie, he’ll balance his work with responsibilities as a father.

But what about that nude scene?We’ll get to that.

Rick Cleveland from Six Feet Under will write and executive produce with David O Sacks, who produced the movie. Christopher Buckley, who wrote the book on which the movie was based, gets a “consulting producer” credit.

Sacks tells Daily Variety : “The reason the movie resonated so much was that it wasn’t about just one particular issue. It’s about PR as a culture, about the way we spin issues. The idea is that there’s a never-ending array of clients he could have. But it has to be something where Nick is on the wrong or unpopular side of things.”

Thank You made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year when a nude scene featuring Katie Holmes was mysteriously cut out , sparking rumours that her protective fiancé Tom Cruise and his fellow Scientologists were behind it.

Director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan) blamed the edit on a “technical glitch,” told reporters they could always see a topless Katie by renting The Gift, and promised the naked scene would be intact when Smoking hit theatres.

It was!

–Tabloid Baby