Enjoying what is shaping up to be her best professional year to date, The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow has decided to switch things up with some TV work, signing on to direct the pilot for a new show on US cable channel HBO called The Miraculous Year.
Created and written by The Aviator's John Logan, the series – should it be commissioned – is planned as a family story anchored by a charismatic, self-destructive Broadway composer. The Sopranos with actual singers, then? Don’t go thinking they’ll be death, except perhaps on stage – this is strictly a light-hearted drama.
Which makes it something of a departure for Bigelow who, while she’s worked in TV before, usually tends to stick to gritty thriller tales – most of her previous telly credits are on Homicide: Life On The Street.
Logan, meanwhile, originally got his start as a playwright before launching his screenwriting career with Any Given Sunday. So he’s bringing plenty of insight to the pilot. It’ll shoot later this year, and then HBO will decide if it wants to pick it up.
While the channel has always tried to nab film talent to help develop its shows (see: Mark Wahlberg producing Entourage), HBO seems to be in a cinema-happy mode eight now, with pilots coming from the likes of Michael Mann, Maria Bello and David Fincher.