Following his winning collaboration with Netflix on “Beef,” Oscar Isaac is doubling down with the streamer. The Golden Globe-winning actor has signed on to star in and executive-produce a new eight-episode hourlong drama set inside the present-day Las Vegas casino business, with Martin Scorsese executive-producing and “Billions” creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien writing, showrunning, and executive-producing.
The currently untitled series centers on Robert “Bobby Red” Redman, the president of the hottest hotel casino in town, who has to make some long-odds moves to secure his position and take more ground. The setting is modern Las Vegas, but the ingredients are old-school: power, money, ego, risk, and the type of men who think they can outplay the room.
Koppelman and Levien are hardly strangers to this territory. Before “Billions” and “Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber,” the duo made their screenwriting debut with “Rounders,” the cult poker drama that has only grown in reputation since its 1998 release. They also co-wrote “Ocean’s Thirteen,” bringing them directly into the Vegas heist world years before this new Netflix drama.
Scorsese’s involvement gives the project another charge. The filmmaker’s “Casino” remains one of the essential modern Las Vegas movies, a sprawling portrait of greed, control, loyalty, and self-destruction in the desert. He also executive-produced HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” another drama about gambling, political power, organized crime, and a city built around vice.
Isaac will play Bobby Red, a role that sounds built around the actor’s gift for charm under pressure and men trying to stay composed while everything around them starts to tilt. His recent run has kept him moving between prestige television, studio films, and filmmaker-driven projects, including Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” the second season of “Beef,” and the ensemble heist film “Triple Frontier.”
The series also arrives as part of a new creative partnership between Netflix and Mad Gene, the production company run by Isaac, Elvira Lind, and Gena Konstantinakos. Under the deal, Netflix will have first-look rights to the company’s film and series projects.
There is another Isaac connection behind the camera: J.C. Chandor, who directed the actor in “A Most Violent Year” and later worked with him again on “Triple Frontier,” will direct the first two episodes. Chandor will also executive produce, alongside Julie Yorn, Rick Yorn, Paul Schiff, Beth Schacter, Isaac, co-executive producer Kerry Orent, and the rest of the producing team.
Isaac and Scorsese are also both part of Julian Schnabel’s “In The Hand Of Dante,” which is coming to Netflix this year. No premiere date has been announced yet for the Vegas series. Still, with Isaac in the lead, Scorsese in the mix, and Koppelman and Levien back in gambling-adjacent territory, Netflix has a flashy adult drama on the table.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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