With television now an accepted, and even highly sought after venue for auteurs to tell the kinds of stories that studios and financiers no longer put their money behind, it’s not a surprise that someone like Wong Kar-Wai is going to try his hand at the medium. However, given his reputation for perfectionism, and basically taking his sweet time to finish whatever he makes to ensure he gets it right, it is surprising that we could see it very soon.
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The director has signed up to direct an 18 episode drama, that will be backed by Huanxi Media Group, and will be distributed in China and around the world. $3.10 million-$3.85 million will be spent per episode, with the plan to spread the program across two seasons — 12 episodes, followed by 6 episodes — but at the moment, casting and story details are being kept under wraps.
Production of the first season is aiming to be completed in 2017, but I like said above, there has never been a timeline that Wong Kar-Wai hasn’t been known to stretch, if not break entirely. There’s no word yet on which streaming service will bring the untitled program stateside, though I bet Netflix and Amazon are both working the phones pretty hard today. All that said, a grand, episodic canvas for Wong Kar-Wai to work with sounds great for a filmmaker who always seems to have more to say about the characters and worlds he creates. However, it will be an adjustment to see his usually beautiful photography relegated to a computer or television screen. [THR]