Gotta love modern television. No longer do cable networks feel constrained by the medium. No longer do they have to create filler in order to pad out the season of a show. Nowadays, more and more shows on either cable networks or streaming services like Netflix are created to be just as long as they need to get the story across. In many ways, it’s a step towards making the medium more like novels, which is by no means a bad thing.

On of the mac-daddies of today’s current Golden Age of Television is HBO. Between shows like GAME OF THRONES, SILICON VALLEY, VEEP, THE LEFTOVERS, and of course, TRUE DETECTIVE, they are changing the connotations that come with the word “television.” A couple decades ago, going from film to TV was basically a demotion within the industry, and nowadays, TV is seen more as a purging creative outlet for grand ideas and nuanced character development. Big movie stars like Matthew McConaughey, Sean Bean, Dwayne Johnson, and Terrence Howard have all thrived on the small screen, and now it looks like one Hollywood A-lister is about to join the ranks.

According to Deadline, HBO is in the process of developing a new TV series that’s set to be written by TRUE DETECTIVE creator Nic Pizzolatto and star Marvel poster boy Robert Downey Jr. The planis for each season to be eight episodes long, and for each season to be planned around and dependent on Downey’s availability. Think SHERLOCK, in how there’s a new season every 2-3 years since actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are busy Hollywood actors. There isn’t necessarily a need to have a new season every year.

As far as what the project is, Deadline speculates that it is a new take on a long in-development feature based on the old Perry Mason novels from writer Erle Stanley Gardner. Five years ago, Downey and his wife set up the project at Warner Bros., but it never really went anywhere. The feature at the time was set to be based on a story from Downey and THE JUDGE producer David Gambino. The idea was for the movie to be a noir-type picture set in the 1930s in Los Angeles. The assumption here is that they’d adapt this idea for television.

For those unfamiliar, Perry Mason is a fictional criminal defense lawyer who was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories. Of course, the character has also shown up in various iterations, including, but not limited to, a long-running TV show in the 1950s and 1960s.

Should this project go through, it’d be an interesting piece of crime fiction to add to HBO’s cache. 

What do you think of the idea of this new series? Let us know in the comments down below!

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SOURCE: Deadline