A couple of months after winning the Oscar for Best Director,La La LandfilmmakerDamien Chazelleis now looking to head to television. The times they are a’changin’, asTHRreports that Chazelle is attached to direct the musical TV projectThe Eddy, which also hasHarry Potter and the Cursed ChildplaywrightJack Thorneset to pen the script. The series is a drama set in contemporary multicultural Paris that revolves around a club, its owner, the house band, and the volatile city that surrounds them.
The project isn’t yet set up at a network, but it’s being shopped to both cable and streaming outlets at the moment and given the heat on Chazelle, it should spark a pretty strong bidding war. SongwriterGlen Ballard, whose credits include “Jagged Little Pill” and “Man in the Mirror,” is attached as an executive producer on the project, as isSix Feet UnderandThe NewsroomalumAlan Poul—maybe HBO has an edge?
This isn’t likely to be Chazelle’snextproject, as he’s gearing up to direct the Neil Armstrong movieFirst Manfor Universal, which hasRyan Goslingin the lead role and is already set for release in November 2018. That’ll likely go in front of cameras later this year, but it’s certainly possible Chazelle could fire upThe Eddysometime in 2018.
Moving to TV is becoming the norm for talented filmmakers, as cable and streaming outlets are providing creatively freeing incubators for the kind of challenging storytelling that’s becoming more rare in cinemas.MoonlightdirectorBarry Jenkins’ next project is a TV series adaptation ofThe Underground Railroadfor Amazon,David O. Russellis directing an Amazon series withRobert De NiroandJulianne Moore, andDavid Fincherrecently returned to Netflix to helm the upcoming seriesMindhunter.
It’ll be interesting to see Chazelle’s energy translated to longform storytelling, and I’m curious to see whereThe Eddylands. Amazon seems to be snatching up everything these days, but I’m a bit old school and would love to see HBO land another high profile series.
