Sometimes, paperwork is a pain in the neck, and while word first surfaced in early August about a brewing TV series directed by David O. Russell and starring Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore, with expectations that a deal would close shortly. Well, it’s taken a bit longer, but when there’s $160 million on the table, perhaps that’s understandable.
Deadline reports that’s the figure dropped by Amazon for two seasons, eight episodes each, of the untitled show that Russell will write and direct entirely himself. Damn. Other than that, story and plot details are under wraps, but it’s said to be a ’90-set mafia series, which sounds just fine to me. Amazon beat out a competitive field for the project, with FX also in the running, but coming in behind the bookseller.
There’s no word yet on when production might begin, but if Martin Scorsese‘s “The Irishman” really does start rolling in February, presumably Russell will have to wait for that to wrap. Either way, this likely puts the director out of the movie game for a while, unless he knocks something out before his show starts, or between seasons. Though given the amount of prep television requires, and that he’ll probably want a breather between writing and shooting eight hours of programming, I don’t see Russell making a film for a while yet. And while that’s a shame, the chance for Russell to unfurl a big narrative across two seasons of television is really exciting.