Hollywood Q&A

Q: We just discovered the Jesse Stone movies and we love them! Are any more going to come out?

A: There is another Jesse Stone movie in the works — it has a title, a pair of writers, a network and very little else at the moment.

The last two bits are somewhat old news. In 2015, a while after CBS decided to stop making Jesse Stone movies, Hallmark picked it up, announcing a deal to release at least two new ones on its Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel. That channel had already been rerunning the heck out of the CBS movies, so producing new ones seemed to make perfect sense.

Hallmark acted pretty quickly, releasing “Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise” in October 2015. And that was the last we heard of the troubled Massachusetts sleuth — until recently, that is.

In an interview with venerable mystery magazine The Strand late last year, Michael Brandman, who co-wrote all of the movies so far, said he and star Tom Selleck (“Blue Bloods”) are hard at work on the second film in the Hallmark deal. He also, in passing, announced the title: “Collateral Damage.”

That means that, like the last one, this one won’t be based on a novel. However, after Stone author Robert B. Parker died, Brandman got the blessing of his estate to continue writing Stone novels, so we know he has a handle on the character.

Q: A friend told me that Hunter S. Thompson came up with the idea for “Nash Bridges.” Is that true?

A: Your friend must be a Seth Meyers fan.

Thompson didn’t get a producer credit, but if you listen to Don Johnson (who did get a producer credit, as well as, you know, the “starring” credit) then, yes, famed journalist and ‘70s icon Hunter S. Thompson did help conceive the ‘90s cop show “Nash Bridges.”

In a recent interview on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” Johnson said he and Thompson were neighbors for a time, and very good friends. Thompson was over at Johnson’s house one day, “complaining that he didn’t have any money.”

“I said, ‘Well, hey, I have this commitment on CBS for 22 episodes, let’s just come up with something,’” Johnson reminisced on “Late Night.” He continued: “We did come up with something. It was terrible. But he was there — he was in the room so he got a royalty. And I took the germ of the idea that we came up with and I turned it into ‘Nash Bridges.’” Though he didn’t get a producer credit, he does get a couple of writing credits. Eagle-eyed viewers (or those who poke around deep in the subpages of IMDb) will know that Thompson was credited as a writer for two late episodes — one in Season 4 and one in Season 6. It’s not clear if those were remnants of this original, late-night brainstorm, or whether Johnson went back to the famed weirdo (author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “The Rum Diary” and many other landmark pieces) for ideas.

Q: Why did they cancel “NCIS: New Orleans”? It’s every bit as good as the original.

A: It seems that CBS disagrees with you, because every indication says it was the network’s decision to cancel the spinoff of the longrunning procedural hit.

The news came at the same time as a few other schedule announcements, including an unrelated cancellation (the sitcom “Mom”), but more notably, the unveiling of a new “NCIS” spinoff — this one set in Hawaii.

That timing suggests that: a) the cancellation was a decision based on the network’s schedule, and b) CBS is in no way done with the NCIS brand — just the southernfried flavor of it. You can even hear it in the polished, post-announcement statements from the people involved.

Executive producers Christopher Silber and Jan Nash said that, “As disappointed as we are to see ‘NOLA’ end, we couldn’t be prouder of the work we’ve done.”

Meanwhile, CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl said, “We’re pleased to give it a big sendoff” and reassured viewers they “will have the opportunity to say ‘goodbye’ to their favorite characters as the final season wraps.”