While writer/director/producer Nic Pizzolatto made his name on creating and running HBO’s “True Detective” for three seasons, he’s since moved on. He isn’t involved with the upcoming crime anthology “True Detective: Night Country,” starring Jodie Foster and featuring new creatives. But the acclaimed writer has given an idea of what he has been up to over the last couple of years, and it’s been a productive few years.
Pizzolatto posted on his official Instagram account to announce the development of three new projects, which include an original film titled “Easy’s Waltz,” that will see him reunite with “True Detective” season two actor Vince Vaughn in the role of a Las Vegas singer (likely harkening back to Vaughn’s 1996 film “Swingers”). Pizzolatto has also cast other roles but is keeping mum on those names for now.
“The Grass Rifles,” another project mentioned in the writer’s post, is an original western television series that Pizzolatto calls his most “populist/funniest thing I’ve ever written. And most romantic.” Perhaps, trying to capitalize on the success of Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone” franchise? The writer adds that he has written the first two episodes and a series outline for the show.
His second film is “The Frenchman,” an adaptation of the international spy novel penned by Jack Beaumont, which is based on the true-life experiences of a real French intelligence officer.
While we don’t have detailed loglines for those first two projects, thankfully, there is an official synopsis of “The Frenchman” on Amazon:
“Alec de Payns is an undercover operative in the ultra-elusive French Y Division of the DGSE, a foreign intelligence service equivalent to the CIA or MI6. Code named Aguilar, de Payns is one of the division’s most accomplished agents working to neutralize international threats on a daily basis while simultaneously trying to balance his home life as a husband and father. When a routine mission to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist group unexpectedly goes belly up, Alec is faced with the unthinkable: he may have been betrayed by someone in his close-knit team—and they may be trying to pin the blame on Alec himself. Back in Paris, Alec is assigned to investigate a secretive biological weapons facility in Pakistan that the DGSE believes to be producing a newly weaponized strain of bacteria intended for release in France. As Alec works to uncover the facility’s secrets, he must also fight to clear his name and discover who the mole is before it’s too late. It’s not just his reputation that’s at stake—it’s the lives of his wife, two young children, and the entire population of Paris.”
However, as cool as these projects could be, it doesn’t sound these are 100% happening as Pizzolatto adds this caveat to the situation, “Since all these projects require millions of dollars, and the market being what it is, I can’t guarantee you’ll actually get to watch all (or any) of them, but the wheels are in motion. All of which is just to assure the fans on here that I haven’t retired and am creating robustly (just not super-dark stories about murder and retribution)…”
More or less, it sounds like Pizzolatto is just letting the public know that while he has been away from the public eye for a few years, and even moved away from Los Angeles at one point, he is still producing a lot of material.