'Superbad' Director to Helm Aaron Sorkin's HBO Pilot

Unsurprisingly, a new Aaron Sorkin TV project has a way of drawing talented people to it. Jeff Daniels is in talks to star, super-producer Scott Rudin is overseeing the whole affair, and now Greg Mottola is onboard to direct the pilot.

Mottola is still best known for "Superbad," one of the few projects from the Apatow factory with a clear directorial vision, and more recently "Paul," a movie I and quite a few others were a little disappointed in. In between, though, he made what I consider his best to date, a really wonderful little film called "Adventureland."

Not nearly enough people saw it, but it was kind of a perfect blend of comedy and drama, a skill harder to master than you might imagine, but one very, very necessary if you're going to direct Sorkin's words.

The show is about an anchor of a cable news show and the staff who makes it all happen. Word on the street is that Sorkin spent some time behind the scenes of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" while that show was still on the air, and given Sorkin's politcal bend, it'd be surprising if he didn't make a show more for the MSNBC audience than the Fox News viewership. Daniels is in talks to play the lead.

Mottola has had some experience on the small screen.

After his first feature - 1996's "The Daytrippers" - he directed a few episodes of some sitcoms, most notably for "Undeclared" and "Arrested Development", before climbing back into features with "Superbad." His resume doesn't exactly scream "Sorkin," but I guess that's what makes it so intriguing.