PERRY MASON: HBO TV series cancelled

Deadline reported today that the Perry Mason series airing on HBO has been cancelled. There are 2 seasons available, so you can watch those..but there will be no more. 

HBO opted not to renew the prequel to the classic series, starring Matthew Rhys and executive produced by Team Downey’s Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, for a third season. The news comes a month and a half after the Season 2 finale debuted April 24. 

PERRY MASON REBOOT

I know this won't have the 'authenticity' of the original Perry Mason series with Raymond Burr, but I'm looking forward to watching this production with Matthew Rhys as Perry Mason. I do love courtroom drama, but this may not be that. It promises to be much more Noir.

This HBO series is set to debut on June 21 and will star Matthew Rhys. Time period: 1931 Los Angeles -- the time of the Great Depression, but also including an LA oil boom, the Olympic Games, and the growing film industry.

Can't wait until June? Catch up on the original series. Available on several different streaming services and YouTube. 

Here's the Trailer for the new Series.

Matthew Rhys to Play PERRY MASON on HBO

I really like Matthew Rhys, but not sure he's Perry Mason. However, I am thrilled that at least the HBO redo will be set in an historical time period. I will reserve judgment until I see the production. This HBO entry is not the courtroom Mason that we know from Raymond Burr on TV. Rather, it's from a time in Mason's life when he was living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator.

So here's the info from Dateline:

HBO's long-in-the-works Perry Mason drama is officially moving forward.

The Americans grad Matthew Rhys has been tapped to star in the limited series, taking over the title role from Robert Downey Jr. The latter will remain on board as an executive producer on the series, which is searching for a director. 

Based on the characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, HBO's Perry Mason will follow the character at a time in his life when he is living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator. Mason is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and is suffering the effects of a broken marriage.
 
Here's the official logline, from HBO: "1932, Los Angeles. While the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression, this city is booming! Oil! Olympic Games! Talking Pictures! Evangelical Fervor! And a child kidnapping gone very, very wrong! Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, this limited series follows the origins of American Fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason. When the case of the decade breaks down his door, Mason’s relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city and just maybe, a pathway to redemption for himself."

The character of Perry Mason, a Los Angeles defense attorney, served as the inspiration for the CBS series of the same name. The drama ran from 1957 to 1966 and starred Raymond Burr in the title role.
Read more here.. 
 

SHARP OBJECTS: HBO series

HBO has a new series (8 episodes) starting tonight -- Sharp Objects -- adapted from Gillian Flynn's 2006 psychological thriller. Sharp Objects follows the self-destructive journalist Camille Preaker as she returns to her small hometown to report on the unsolved murders of two girls.

Gillian Flynn is the executive producer of the series and wrote several of the episodes. Jean Marc Vallée  (Big Little Lies) directs. Sharp Objects stars Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson.

Read the NYT review here

Read the LA Times review here

I haven't seen it yet, but will update this post when I do. Be sure and leave comments with your opinion.

Big Little Lies coming to HBO

Watch the trailer for Big Little Lies, the HBO limited series based on Liane Moriarty's novel, starring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, James Tupper and Zoë Kravitz, Indiewire reported.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by David E. Kelley, Big Little Lies premieres February 19, 2017.

Bringing us into the aggressively nice world of the Monterey elite, the series features Witherspoon and Kidman as the queen bees of a community of moms “whose apparently perfect lives” (according to the official release) “unravel to the point of murder.” Get ready for no shortage of cattiness and backstabbing thanks to the pen of David E. Kelley, as the women prepare to throw each other under the bus thanks to a crime that will surely haunt all seven episodes of the series.

Fahrenheit 451 in works at HBO

From Entertainment Weekly

HBO is giving Fahrenheit 451 the cinematic treatment, EW has confirmed.

The 1953 dystopian novel, largely considered one of author Ray Bradbury’s best works, is currently in development for a film adaption at the network. The HBO team tapped 99 Homes’ Ramin Bahrani as writer and director. He’ll also serve as executive producer alongside Alan Gasmer (Vikings) and Peter Jaysen (You Me Her).

Fahrenheit 451 has previously been transformed for both screen and stage, most notably for the 1966 Brit drama from François Truffaut. Its story takes place in a futuristic American society in which all books have been banned, with “firemen” burning any they may come across. Though controversial, the classic novel has been touted as a cornerstone for high school literature.

No further details on the film have been announced.

HBO Drama "The Deuce" Adds Writers Lisa Lutz & Megan Abbott

In case you missed this, David Simon's HBO’s upcoming drama series The Deuce has added novelists Megan Abbott and Lisa Lutz to its writing team -- joining David Simon (The Wire), George Pelecanos, and Richard Price.

From Deadline:

Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of seven novels, including Dare Me and The Fever. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal and in anthologies including Detroit Noir, Best American Mystery Stories of 2015 and Mississippi Noir. She was the 2015 winner of the International Thriller Writers’ and Strand Critics’ Awards for Best Novel. Her next book You Will Know Me comes out in July 2016.

Lutz is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including this spring’s new thriller, The Passenger, How to Start a Fire, six novels in the Spellman books series, and Heads You Lose, co-authored with David Hayward. She is also the author of the children’s book, How to Negotiate Everything,  illustrated by Jaime Temairik. Lutz has won the Alex award and has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

The Deuce follows the story of the legalization and subsequent rise of the porn industry in New York’s Times Square from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s, exploring the rough-and-tumble world that existed there until the rise of HIV, the violence of the cocaine epidemic, and the renewed real estate market ended the bawdy turbulence. The series is currently in pre-production in New York.

J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy on HBO

From Deadline Hollywood:

HBO’s miniseries/BBC adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s bestseller The Casual Vacancy unfolds in a deceptively cozy British village thrown into an uproar by the sudden death of the Parish Councillor. Michael Gambon stars with Keeley Hawes, Rory Kinnear, Monica Dolan and Julia McKenzie and Abigail Lawrie. Jonny Campbell directed from a script by Sarah Phelps. The adaptation of the Harry Potter author’s first novel for adults was produced by Rowling and Neil Blair’s Bronte Film and Television. The three-parter premieres April 29 and 30.

Read more from The Guardian here.

 

Parade's End to air on HBO

U.K. miniseries "Parade's End" with Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall that aired in the U.K. last fall will air on HBO in February.

The miniseries is an adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s four novels which chronicle the life of Christopher Tietjens (Cumberbatch), a government statistician from a wealthy family who is serving in the British Army during World War I. While Christopher is at war, the novel also follows his wife Sylvia (Hall) – a socialite who seems intent on ruining her husband – and the suffragette Valentine (Clemens) with whom Cumberbatch is having an affair. Scandal!

The series will air over three consecutive nights starting on February 26th at 9 p.m. 

Source: Indiewire.com
Hat Tip: ShelfAwareness