Aaron Sorkin was one of the few deserved winners at this year’s Academy Awards and during the press tour for the great The Social Network, he announced that he would be keeping himself busy with new projects which include: a new film, a new play and a new TV series. Coming first is the new TV series, which is being brought to fruition by Social Network-producer Scott Rudin at the legendary HBO. Reportedly titled: ‘As the Story Develops’ it will star Jeff Daniels in the lead role Will McAllister, and is about an anchor newscaster and his team.
Now things are moving forward and Greg Mottola of Superbad, Adventureland and more recently Paul, has signed on to direct according to Deadline. This can only be good news, I think with a good script Mottola can do great things with it. The Playlist reports that the pilot script works really well and is vintage Sorkin, which can only be a good thing.
As for the content, I will wait and see. I personally can’t wait but with my skeptical head on it is arguable that this could end up being derivative. After comparing your movie and your writing to Paddy Chayefsky and specifically Network throughout the awards season, this does sound very much like the great Lumet movie. Also the spectre of Broadcast News also looms large here, Collider said there will be a female executive behind Jeff Daniels’ McAllister, which can only bring to mind Brooks’ massively underrated comedy. A point Mottola concedes in his tweet.
my new gig gives me a good reason to revisit classics like Lumet’s ‘Network’ and @canyonjim‘s more-relevant-than-ever ‘Broadcast News’
However it is Sorkin and the man does referential very well and his voice is different to any writer out there, he is unique. Also he is renowned for creating some of the greatest female characters in TV namely CJ Cregg from The West Wing. So I can’t wait and HBO has put their name to only good series, so role on 2012.