David Simon, creator of "The Wire" and "Treme", has gotten his new miniseries " Show Me a Hero" green-lit by HBO. "Show Me a Hero" is based on a book written by former New York Times and Huffington Post reporter Lisa Belkin that will be helmed by Oscar winning writer-director Paul Haggis and co-written by longtime collaborator Bill Zorzi who also worked with Simon on "The Wire".
"Show Me a Hero" is on the face of it has a classic Simonian target in all his work so far, the dysfunction and systemic failure at the political and institutional level as it tells the tragic true story of Nicholas Wasicsko, a young mayor who suffers a vicious backlash due to his decision to back a desegregation court order to build new low income housing, a measure he was previously against.
It was unsure whether Simon was going to create and produce another having produced two HBO shows in "The Wire" and "Treme" which were both critically acclaimed but commercial stillborns. Simon also stressed the change in direction a HBO was hastening his consideration of other mediums as Simon said in an Hitfix interview "...there are a lot of mediums, not the least of which is prose. I've written a couple of books. I owe a third book to an editor, I've been doing some work on some theater stuff that has proven to be really interesting to me, just because it's fresh. A lot of the stuff that HBO is having success with in these late years is not stuff that I'm interested in - they're not franchises that I would be comfortable devoting any time to. It's a different world, and ultimately, I'm also a little exhausted by the form itself"
However his transition from "longform" TV series to miniseries is no surprise as in an interview with Hitfix's Alan Sepinwall, Simon said "what works in terms of maintaining an audience is not stuff I'm particularly interested in doing. So there will be some role in doing some limited run minis...the kind you're not getting anywhere on television now, and is willing to trade audience for something else"
Filming for "Show me a hero" is set to start in the fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment