Russell Crowe is making the leap to TV for his very own prestige TV series. And this one is sure to grab headlines. The Australian actor has signed on to star as disgraced media mogul Roger Ailes in the Showtime series based on the book, “The Loudest Voice in the Room.”
But it’s not just Crowe’s involvement that should make you excited. Behind the scenes, there’s some heavyweight talent on board for the miniseries. “Spotlight” writer-director Tom McCarthy is on board to co-write the pilot, along with Gabriel Sherman, who wrote the source material. And none other than Jason Blum, of Blumhouse fame and generally the man with the Midas Touch in Hollywood, is on board to produce.
“In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today,” Showtime CEO David Nevins said (via THR). “We’ve seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era.”
Now, those are some lofty ambitions, comparing the series to something like “Citizen Kane,” but the comparison is apt, at least on paper. Execution, however, is still up in the air.
Crowe is obviously a fairly known quantity as a performer. He’s been nominated for three Oscars, and won for his role in “Gladiator.” Outside of that, he’s starred in a large number of blockbuster films and has cemented his status as an A-lister. It’ll be interesting to see if they utilize some prosthetics to make him look more like Ailes, as Crowe has been known to change his appearance for a role, when necessary.
No word on a release date, but we’ll definitely have our eyes on this project as it progresses.