Once upon a time, a movie director would only really go off and direct TV projects if they found it difficult to get feature work. But it’s a mark of how things have shifted now that it’s become a measure of success to have some kind of prestige TV project in the works — lauded and impossibly successful directors as different as J.J. Abrams, David O. Russell and Barry Jenkins are all developing small-screen projects alongside their movies, and a show like “Big Little Lies” attracts just as much attention, if not more so, than a multiplex hit.
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The latest AAA helmer to make a move onto the big screen, notably, is the current holder of the Best Director Oscar, “La La Land” helmer Damien Chazelle, who The Hollywood Reporter reveals is attached to direct some, if not all, of “The Eddy,” a TV project that’s soon to be shopped to cable and streaming services. Fittingly, it’s another musical, set in a club in “contemporary multicultural Paris” (perhaps pointedly included here given some of the criticisms of “La La Land”), and focusing on its owner and its house band.
The script comes from the very good and insanely prolific Jack Thorne, who among many other projects, penned the “Harry Potter” play, the acclaimed TV drama “National Treasure,” and is currently working on the BBC adaptation of the “His Dark Materials” series. He’s got musical form, too: his stage show “Junkyard” has just opened in London.
The project was once in development with HBO, but is now looking for a home, though we’re sure the cable giant would consider taking a look now that Chazelle is involved. The timeline is unclear, but Chazelle will be reteaming with Ryan Gosling for Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man” before the year is out, so we imagine that this would shoot some time after that goes.