Remember how the Republican National Committee threatened NBC and CNN to call off their planned Hillary Clinton projects lest they not get any of the Republican primary debates in 2016? Well, if the RNC is serious about taking a stand, the party may end up limiting its debates to other networks, but mainly Fox News. There’s just one teensy, tiny, little problem: 
 
 Fox Television Studios may be producing NBC’s Hillary miniseries. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The New York Times broke the news late Friday, which will almost assuredly not be followed by threats to boycott debates on Fox. 
 
 Leslie Oren, a spokesman for FTVS, as the studio is known, confirmed that NBC is in “the early stages” of discussions to bring the Fox unit in as the production company on the as yet unnamed mini-series, which will star Diane Lane as Mrs. Clinton. “There is no deal yet,” Ms. Oren said. But should a deal be completed, FTVS would become the distributor of the film internationally. FTVS is the production arm of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment group. 
 
 Naturally, the argument here would be, “Fox News and Fox Entertainment are two completely different things! Don’t judge one for what the other is doing!” 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 The Times report also reveals some of the behind-the-scenes work leading up to NBC acquiring the project. It was initially brought to to the company Endgame, before being pitched all around Hollywood, and eventually getting picked up by NBC. NBC then got in touch with Fox Television Studios to produce the project, having more experience than NBC’s own Universal Television Studios in creating “long-form” projects. 
 
 h/t HuffPo 
 
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 Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac ||||| The script for the proposed mini-series on the life of the possible presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t even been written but we may already have a plot twist. 
 
 While NBC has come under heavy fire, especially from Republican critics, for agreeing to broadcast the series, the project may wind up being produced by another company: Fox Television Studios, the sister company of the conservative favorite, Fox News. 
 
 Leslie Oren, a spokesman for FTVS, as the studio is known, confirmed that NBC is in “the early stages” of discussions to bring the Fox unit in as the production company on the as yet unnamed mini-series, which will star Diane Lane as Mrs. Clinton. 
 
 “There is no deal yet,” Ms. Oren said. But should a deal be completed, FTVS would become the distributor of the film internationally. FTVS is the production arm of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment group. 
 
 It would also become something of an odd partner in what has become a contentious project, especially after Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, threatened to keep presidential debates involving Republican candidates off both NBC and its news channel MSNBC, if it went ahead with what he called a “promotional movie about the life of Hillary Clinton.” 
 
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 But criticism of NBC’s decision to buy the film has also come from inside its news division, as two correspondents, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell, have spoken out publicly suggesting the film would damage the reputation of NBC News. 
 
 Mr. Todd, the chief White House correspondent for the network, said, “this mini-series is a total nightmare for NBC News.” Ms. Mitchell, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC, called the movie “a really bad idea given the timing." 
 
 NBC has been in the cross hairs of conservative critics for some time, mainly because its news division also runs MSNBC, which also makes no secret of its political bent — liberal rather than conservative. Both Mr. Todd and Ms. Mitchell host programs on MSNBC. 
 
 The position of NBC’s Entertainment division has been that the project is being produced entirely separately from the news division, and that there is a firewall between the divisions, with the news organization in no way responsible for the content. 
 
 Whether an association with a Fox company reduces the heat on the Clinton project seems unlikely, however, especially because in this case the criticism has also come from NBC News itself. One longtime senior news executive, who asked not to be identified criticizing the network, called the movie “wildly inappropriate for NBC to be doing.” 
 
 That reaction is largely based on the presumption that Mrs. Clinton will be a candidate in 2016. It is not based on the script for the film, which has not been written. 
 
 The back story of the project underscores the automatic interest that surrounds Mrs. Clinton, as well as the complicated corporate arrangements that often accompany Hollywood projects. 
 
 In this case, the project began as an idea hatched by Sherryl Clark, an independent producer. She took the idea of a Clinton movie to a company named Endgame, which finances and produces television programs and movies. The chairman of Endgame, James D. Stern, agreed to pick up the project with both he and Ms. Clark attached as executive producers. 
 
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 They sought out a writer/director for the project as well as a star. In both cases they attracted Oscar nominees. Courtney Hunt, who wrote and directed the well-regarded independent film “Frozen River,” signed on to the project. Also, Diane Lane, who was nominated for an Academy Award for “Unfaithful,” agreed to play Mrs. Clinton. 
 
 A spokeswoman for Endgame, Gina Lang, said the project was then pitched around Hollywood to several broadcast and cable networks. Another executive involved in the project said several networks expressed interest. But NBC offered the best deal. 
 
 The chairman of NBC Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt, announced the acquisition of the project on July 27, one day after the deal with Endgame was concluded. Mr. Greenblatt said at the time that NBC would ensure the movie was on the air before Mrs. Clinton formally declared for the presidency to avoid any demands from other candidates for equal time. 
 
 According to the official description, “The script will begin with Clinton living in the White House as her husband is serving the second of his two terms as president. In the years following, she would eventually become a United States senator, run for president and, ultimately, serve the country as secretary of state.” 
 
 NBC then reached out to FTVS to become the production company on the project. NBC does have its own in-house studio, Universal Television, but FTVS has much more experience in what is known in television as “long form” projects. The company has produced such mini-series as “Flight 93” for the A&E; network, “Prosecuting Casey Anthony” for Lifetime and “The Grid” for TNT. 
 
 Television networks have produced movies about political figures in the past, often attracting similar protests. In 2003, CBS commissioned a mini-series based on Ronald and Nancy Reagan but protests from conservative groups drove the movie off that network and onto Showtime. HBO also met with conservative criticism in 2012, when it made a film about Sarah Palin’s run for the vice presidency based on the book, “Game Change.” 
 
 The planned NBC film is one of three biographical projects based on Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Priebus also attacked a planned CNN documentary on Mrs. Clinton. Executives at that network have defended that project, saying it will be produced as a news program, not a fictional movie with an actress playing Mrs. Clinton. 
 
 A theatrical movie called “Rodham,” based on Mrs. Clinton’s young life, is also in the works. Numerous actresses, including Scarlett Johansson, Carey Mulligan and Jessica Chastain have been mentioned in connection with the role but none have yet to accept the part. 
 
 A review of the script for that movie, which appeared in the conservative magazine American Spectator, described it as far from favorable to Mrs. Clinton, saying it makes her appear “a brazen careerist, as disdainful of other women as she is of men.”
– Might Republicans have to blackball Fox from the GOP presidential debates, too? The New York Times adds an interesting twist to the controversy over a Hillary Clinton miniseries in the works—while the production is planned to air on NBC, it might be produced by Fox Television Studios. As reported earlier, the Republican National Committee is livid over the proposed miniseries, which it thinks will amount to free advertising for Clinton. If NBC airs it, the RNC has threatened to keep the debates off the network. (Ditto for CNN, which is working on a Clinton documentary.) NBC News has argued that it is a separate entity from the entertainment division of the network and thus shouldn't be penalized. (In fact, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd have spoken out against the miniseries.) Now Fox News might have to make the same argument about Fox Television Studios, notes Mediaite.