The Coen Bros. Television Hour?
by Richard Sharp
We were excited as could be about the white-hot trend towards talented filmmakers entering the world of television when we heard that filmmaker Michael Mann was directing Dustin Hoffmann and Nick Nolte in a new HBO show ("Luck"), but this news is even cooler.
Joel and Ethan Coen, aka The Coen Bros., have reportedly signed on with Fox to do an hour long show about a grumpy private investigator.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show, called "Harvey Karbo," "revolves around a touchy Los Angeles private investigator -- and his deadbeat friends in El Segundo -- whose cases frequently force him to cross paths with a who’s who of Hollywood."
From the Oscar-nominated "True Grit" and Oscar-winning masterpiece "No Country for Old Men" to classics like "Fargo" and "Blood Simple" and iconic cult movies like "The Big Lebowski," few writer/director teams are capable of creating more hilarious and memorable characters and incomparably intelligent and nuanced dialogue than the brothers Coen.
They've had nary a miss in over 25 years of collaborative filmmaking (even "Intolerable Cruelty" had memorable dialogue), but television is one realm into which they have yet to venture.
They'll collaborate on the script for the pilot with "Cedar Rapids" scribe Phil Johnson.
Other projects the Coen Bros. are currently working on include "Inside Llewyn Davis" (a film about the 60's Greenwich Village folk scene), "Gambie (a remake of an old Shirley MacLaine caper comedy) and "Suburbicon" (a dark comedy written by the Bros. and reportedly directed by George Clooney).
Seriously, this trend where talented filmmakers are finding TV a much more comfortable place to ply their trade, telling solid, well-thought out stories to adult audiences? We say bravo. We're proud of ya, Hollywood - let's keep up the good work.