He might not exactly have been the biggest household name, but even before his fall from power, Fox News boss Roger Ailes was a controversial figure. Now Russell Crowe will portray him in a new series for US network Showtime.
Based on writer Gabriel Sherman's book The Loudest Voice In The Room, the miniseries will chart the revelations about Ailes – hired to run the conservative cable news outlet by Rupert Murdoch back in 1996 – who resigned in 2016 after various allegations about sexual misconduct emerged, some of them in Sherman's tome. After leaving Fox, Ailes returned to his political consulting career, providing assistance to the Trump campaign. Ailes died last year at the age of 77.
"In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today," Showtime Networks president and CEO David Nevins tells Variety. “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."
Spotlight's Tom McCarthy has been working with Sherman to develop his book into a miniseries, though there's no indication yet of when it'll hit screens.
Crowe, last seen in The Mummy, is part of the cast for Boy Erased, which will be out in the US on 28 September but has yet to confirm a UK release.
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