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Last week, Amazon started streaming their new pilots and the highlight of this year's crop is writer-director Whit Stillman's The Cosmopolitans.  The show (which you can watch here) follows a group of young American expatriates in Paris searching for love and friendship in the city of lights.  If you've seen Stillman's movies (Damsels in Distress, Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco) you know the type of characters and situations he likes to write about, and I'm happy to say his trademark humor and wit is on full display in The Cosmopolitans.  It's definitely worth checking out, especially if you want Amazon to pick up the show.  The dramedy stars Adam Brody,  Chloë Sevigny, Carrie MacLemore, Dree Hemingway, Freddy Åsblom, Jordan Rountree, and Adriano Giannini. Last week I landed an exclusive interview with Whit Stillman in Los Angeles.  He talked about how the project came together at Amazon, his plans...

The Cosmopolitans, Season 1, Episode 1: “Pilot”

Written by Whit Stillman

Directed by Whit Stillman

Released August 28, 2014 by Amazon

As Amazon continues to attempt to expand into original programming with their pilot season, they are promoting many of their pilots as the work of a distinct, well-known voice: “produced by Steven Soderbergh” or “created by Jay Chandrasekhar.” For The Cosmopolitans, that distinct voice is Whit Stillman, the writer-director-producer behind movies like Metropolitan and Damsels in Distress. It’s billed as a comedy about modern American ex-pats in Paris, a sort of twist on Hemingway’s classic A Moveable Feast. It’s got the same tone and slice-of-life feel as Stillman’s other works, or an HBO comedy like Girls or Looking.

If Girls attracted controversy for its lack of diversity, I can’t imagine what those critics are going to say about The Cosmopolitans. It’s all a very heteronormative, upper-class,...

Writer-director Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan") is taking his signature brand of young relationship comedy to Amazon Instant Video. “The Cosmopolitans” premieres on August 28, 2014. His latest ensemble includes Stillman vets Adam Brody ("Damsels in Distress") and Chloë Sevigny ("The Last Days of Disco"), plus Carrie MacLemore, Dree Hemingway, Freddy Åsblom, Jordan Rountree and Italian actor Adriano Giannini. How did Stillman wind up on Amazon? The filmmaker was an expat himself in Paris for nine years after "The Last Days of Disco," returning stateside to make "Damsels in Distress." “I had a lot of material set in Paris, and I would always think in terms of doing an independent film,” Stillman told Vf.com. “But you also have to make a living, and TV is what’s happening.” Much like "Barcelona" (my favorite of his films), this half-hour dramatic comedy pilot follows a...

Big news today: We’re excited to announce Amazon Studios’ third pilot season, beginning August 28th and featuring three half hour comedies The Cosmopolitans, Really and Red Oaks, and two hour-long dramatic thrillers Hand of God and Hysteria. For one month, it will be up to you to watch, rate and comment – ultimately helping us decide which of them get the greenlight.

“There is something for everyone in this season,” says Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. The glamorous life of modern day expats in Paris. The hijinks of a summer job at a country club in 1980s New Jersey. The visions of a vigilante judge who appears to be channeling God. The complexities of marriage and friendship among a circle of friends in suburban Chicago. And the mysteries behind a psycho-physiological illness spreading through a small town in Texas.

You can help choose which of these stories should get “picked up” to become shows.

Amazon is gearing up for its third pilot season, in which it will present five new shows for users to watch, rate, and review. Starting on August 28, three half-hour comedies and two hour-long dramas will be made available on Amazon Instant Video in both the U.S. and the UK. Users will be able to watch the pilots, rate them, and even comment on them. By the end of the pilot season, that feedback helps choose which shows become an Amazon Original series.

Here’s a quick rundown of this year’s pilots:

Hand of God: An hour-long drama,...

Amazon Studios today announced it has greenlit two new pilots—the half hour dramatic comedy The Cosmopolitans, from Whit Stillman, and one hour drama Hand of God from Executive Producers Marc Forster, Ben Watkins, Ron Perlman, Brian Wilkins and Jeff King—for its third pilot season debuting later this year on Amazon Instant Video. Customers will once again be invited to watch and provide feedback on the shows they want to see turned into full series, which will then become available on Prime Instant Video. Additional pilots joining The Cosmopolitans and Hand of God in the third pilot season will be announced in the coming weeks. More on the pilots:

The Cosmopolitans

Written, directed and produced by Academy Award nominee Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco), The Cosmopolitans follows a group of young American expatriates in Paris searching for love and friendship in a foreign city. The...

Amazon Studios hasn’t backed out from its commitment to creating original series’ for their Instant Video streaming service. Despite Netflix running away as the #1 streaming network, Amazon has announced that a third round of pilots are set to premiere later this year. They’re also going to keep their unique, quasi fan-sourced, approach alive. See, on Amazon, when they launch a pilot they allow the viewers a window of time to offer direct feedback about whether or not they’d like to see the series get a full season order.

They’ve found some success with recent shows like Alpha House and Betas, while notable flops like their series adaptation of Zombieland famously tanked during the network’s ambitious first attempt at creating something original.

Amazon Studios that the network’s third round of pilots will include the following two shows:

The Cosmopolitans

Written, directed and produced by Academy Award nominee Whit Stillman (Metropolitan,...