Fox Pulls Out of Hillary Clinton Mini-Series

An outlet of Fox Entertainment said Friday that financial issues led it to pull out of a mini-series about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that is being planned for NBC.

The decision by Fox Television Studios came on the same day as the Republican National Committee unanimously passed a resolution to prevent NBC and CNN from covering its 2016 GOP presidential primary debates.

The New York Times reported Friday that an executive involved in the negotiations between Fox and NBC said political pressure was not a factor.

Rather, the financial terms being offered by NBC simply were not attractive to Fox, the executive told the Times.

The RNC, meeting in Boston at its summer meeting, asked the networks Friday "to cancel these political ads masked as unbiased entertainment." Clinton is considered a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.

CNN is planning a documentary about Clinton from director Charles Ferguson, who won an Oscar in 2011 for his film "Inside Job." Ferguson used his Oscar acceptance speech as a platform of sorts, saying, "Three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."

"The Hillary Clinton movie has not been ordered to production. Only a script is being written at this time," NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt told The Hollywood Reporter. The network plans to produce the series on its own.

"It is 'in development,' the first stage of any television series or movie, many of which never go to production," Greenblatt said. "Speculation, demands, and declarations pertaining to something that isn't created or produced yet seem premature."

The executive who spoke to The New York Times, who insisted on not being identified because of the private nature of the talks, said Fox's research indicated that foreign sales of the film might not be as strong as anticipated.

Fox Television Studios would have gained international sales rights to the mini-series, a crucial factor in its interest, the Times reports.

It was announced last week that Fox TV Studios, the home of the Fox News cable channel, might produce the planned four-hour mini-series, written and directed by Courtney Hunt and starring actress Diane Lane.

Fox TV did not respond to requests for comment. NBC also declined to comment.