With not one but two TV projects either about to hit US cable (medical drama The Knick) or in development (a small screen spin-off of **The Girlfriend Experience), Steven Soderbergh is seemingly busier than ever, and that’s saying something. Now he will also spend time producing a third show, Red Oaks, for Amazon. And he’s recruited Craig Roberts, Paul Reiser, Richard Kind and Oliver Copper to star.
As with The Girlfriend Experience show, Soderbergh won’t actually direct the pilot for the new potential series, though he’s hired someone more than capable: David Gordon Green. And the show represents him collaborating once again with The Knick writer Greg Jacobs. “Greg Jacobs told me this idea on the set of Behind The Candelabra and I told him it was great and that he should start working on it immediately,” says Steven Soderbergh in a statement picked up by The Wrap. “Then, while we were on the set of The Knick he gave me the script he wrote with Joe Gangemi and I said, ‘This is ready to go, let's find a director.’ We very quickly agreed to approach David because the humour was sharp without being mean, and we felt he would understand and appreciate that.”
Red Oaks is set at the eponymous country club in New Jersey in 1985, and features Roberts as an assistant tennis coach. It’ll be put up on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service with a variety of other pilots for consideration by customers before the company decides which shows will go ahead. Given the people involved, though, we’d guess this has a good shot.