Testing Just How Good Greed Is

Roughly a decade ago Michael S. Chernuchin, then a producer on NBC’s cops and district attorneys drama “Law & Order,” began pitching an idea for a new television series.

“I said, ‘What about Wall Street?’ The executives said, ‘Nobody cares,’ ” recalled Chernuchin, who left a legal practice in New York to become a television writer. “Now I’m lucky that everyone’s in Wall Street. Fifty percent of Americans own stock now, which is an incredible number. The time has come.”

As is often the case in the entertainment industry, however, when ideas “arrive,” they do so in pairs, if not trios and quartets. So “Bull”--the Wall Street-set drama created by Chernuchin, which premieres Tuesday--will soon have company: “The $treet,” another drama with Wall Street as a backdrop, from “Sex and the City” producer Darren Star, slated to make its debut on Fox in November.

According to Chernuchin, tapping Wall Street in pursuit of ratings instead of riches has long given executives pause.

“Conventional wisdom says cops, lawyers and doctors,” he said. “If you don’t have cops, lawyers and doctors, it’s not going to work. It happened to ‘The Sopranos.’ They went around to all the networks and ended up on HBO.”

It’s perhaps fitting, then, that “Bull”--initially developed at ABC--would become an original dramatic series for cable’s TNT channel, which, after a string of high-profile movies, is trying to see if it can compete in that arena as well.

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Featuring an ensemble cast, “Bull” focuses on a cadre of young investment bankers who bolt from a venerable Wall Street firm. Donald Moffat plays the established company’s patriarch and George Newbern (“Father of the Bride”) portrays his grandson, who leads the insurgents. In a casting coup, Stanley Tucci will appear in “Bull’s” first six episodes as a scheming negotiator.

“The $treet,” meanwhile, deals with young traders as well as their extracurricular activities, which include hazing new arrivals and lots of talk about sex. In that respect, Star characterizes the program as something of a male counterpoint to “Sex and the City,” in a venue that amounts to “the last boys’ club.”

“They work hard and they play hard. That’s what makes them interesting,” said Star, who will also be juggling a third show, “Grosse Pointe,” a behind-the-scenes satire of a TV drama for the WB network.

In typical Hollywood fashion, however, questions linger as to just how “inside baseball” the programs can be. “Bull’s” press kit, for example, includes a glossary of Wall Street terms, from “bear” to “warrant,” to help the press, at least, sort out what it all means.

To Chernuchin, such considerations are less of an issue than coming up with compelling drama and relatable characters--which, in the case of “Bull,” will include a seven-episode story arc chronicling a corporate takeover.

“I’m assuming [viewers] know what a stock is, what a bond is, what day trading is,” Chernuchin said. “After that, they’ll pick it up. I remember watching the first year of ‘NYPD Blue.’ I didn’t know all that lingo, and by the fifth episode I did. If you don’t use that lingo, people won’t take it seriously.”

Unlike cops and doctors, Wall Street has yet to fully demonstrate its viability as popular entertainment. “Wall Street,” director Oliver Stone’s 1987 film that popularized the phrase “Greed is good,” drew some critical praise but didn’t perform especially well at the box office, and other movies set in that milieu--including this year’s “Boiler Room”--have generally been of the low-budget, art-house variety.

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Television productions about the financial arena, in particular, have been few and far between. Perhaps the most memorable exploration of the inner workings of big business was “Barbarians at the Gate,” HBO’s satiric 1994 docudrama about the takeover of RJR Nabisco.

Still, Stanley Weiser, who co-wrote “Wall Street” with Stone and flirted with adapting the film into a TV series, agrees that times have changed since the early 1990s, with 24-hour financial news networks and millions sinking their money into 401(k) plans.

“At that point, it was a little bit too arcane,” noted Weiser, currently writing a movie about the life of tennis great Arthur Ashe for TNT. “Nowadays, the collective psyche is much more attuned to the market.”

Robert DeBitetto, TNT’s president of original programming, acknowledged public interest in intricacies of the stock market has been a source of concern. Yet with variations on cops and robbers pretty much tapped out, the network wanted to try a different approach.

“We felt it was important the first show be something somewhat distinctive,” he said. “Hopefully, an audience will go, ‘Hmm. We haven’t seen this before.’ ”

As for Fox introducing a program in a similar vein, DeBitetto said, “If anything, it’s a validation of the conclusion we came to--that it’s probably a good time for a show about Wall Street.”

Chernuchin remains convinced people have awakened to the world of finance, which, he contends, touches their lives more directly than most dramas populating the prime-time landscape.

“Most people go to a lawyer twice in their lives: to buy a house and to write a will. Lawyers don’t affect them,” Chernuchin said. “But these people, the price of milk goes up, it affects everybody.”

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People often harbor a negative view of lawyers, and network executives also fret about presenting characters the audience won’t like. In “The $treet” pilot, for example, part of the action hinges on an initial public offering for two bickering twentysomethings hoping to become instant millionaires by marketing Ivy League sperm.

Star dismisses the notion there might be anything inherently off-putting about Wall Street characters as well as the assumption viewers must feel an affinity for the people they’re watching. “I’m more concerned with characters being interesting than likable,” he said.

Because the series marks relatively new terrain for TNT (a second drama, set in the world of TV news, will premiere in January), the network is reluctant to discuss rating expectations. Chernuchin concedes he is somewhat disappointed the project never made the cut on one of the elder broadcast networks but expressed enthusiasm for launching what amounts to a new business at the cable channel, which draws some of its biggest audiences for World Championship Wrestling.

“Of course you’d like to be in ‘ER’s’ slot, but I’m attracting actors to this that wouldn’t work in network television,” he said.

“Nobody knows what to expect. If I improve on wrestling, I guess I’m doing my job.”

* “Bull” can be seen Tuesday night at 8, 9 and 10 on TNT. It is rated TV-14-LS (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with advisories for coarse language and sexuality).