‘The Sympathizer’: Five Join Robert Downey Jr. In HBO & A24’s Drama Series Adaptation

Leonard Cohen’s transformative tour of Israel at the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War is to be made into a limited TV drama series by Shtisel creator Yehonatan Indursky, Keshet International and Jill Offman’s Sixty-Six Media.

EXCLUSIVE: As HBO Max’s Dune: The Sisterhood (wt) moves into production, series creator and writer Diane Ademu-John is stepping down as co-showrunner. She will remain creatively involved in the prequel as executive producer but will focus on other commitments. Veteran TV writer-producer Alison Schapker, who has served as co-showrunner with Ademu-John, will now be the sole showrunner for the series.

Canada’s Marblemedia and LA- and Toronto-based Fae Pictures have teamed to develop political prime-time drama series Salt, from screenwriter Abdul Malik (Transplant).

A Disney Nordic Noir? When’s the last time that happened? Probably never, but Deadline reports that’s what Disney+ has on the way as a six-part limited series. The streamer has an adaptation of Mikael Niemi‘s 2017 novel “To Cook A Bear” on the way, a 19th-century period piece that sees a runaway boy and priest team up to search for a killer bear in the nearby wilderness.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative media firm The Daily Wire has optioned exclusive film and TV series rights to develop and produce an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s dystopian 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, the author’s most heralded work.

Derek Kolstad and Lionsgate already have a great working relationship thanks to the “John Wick” franchise. And that series shows no signs of slowing down, with “John Wick: Chapter 4” hitting theaters on March 24, 2023 and two spinoffs, Les Wiseman‘s “Ballerina” with Ana de Armas and the Starz prequel “The Continental,” also on the way.

One of the biggest stars in the world, you know Robert Downey Jr. In every conceivable metric on Box Office Mojo, The Numbers, Wikipedia, ranking the highest-ranking lifetime actor grosses at the box office, or bankability, Downey Jr.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS is developing the drama series Manner of Death from writer and executive producer Emily Silver. The CBS Studios project will also be executive produced by Dan Lin and Lindsey Liberatore for Rideback.

Killing Eve‘s Sandra Oh, Kieuh Chinh (Dynasty) andNguyen Cao Ky Duyen (Paris By Night) are set for key recurring roles in The Sympathizer, a drama series adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, produced by and co-starring Robert Downey Jr.

Good Night, And Good Luck, the 2005 feature film directed by and starring George Clooney, is being adapted for the small screen.

Travis Fimmel has been tapped as the male lead opposite Emily Watson and Shirley Henderson in HBO Max’s series Dune: The Sisterhood (wt), from Legendary Television.

Following months of negotiations, Netflix has landed the rights to popular XBox video game Gears of War. The streamer will partner with The Coalition, the video game developer behind the series, and work with them to not only develop a feature film adaptation but also an animated series.

EXCLUSIVE: BritBox International has tapped Sanjeev Bhaskar as the lead for its latest original drama series, Inspector Singh Investigates, and has picked up docs about legendary acting mavericks Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole.

EXCLUSIVE: Petey Gibson (Broad City), Fivel Stewart (Atypical) and Bre Blair (Game of Silence) are set for major recurring roles opposite Scott Caan and Dania Ramirez in Alert, Fox’s character-driven police procedural from The Blacklist showrunner John Eisendrath and Jamie Foxx. 

The nine-episode first season of the HBO Original drama series The Last of Us debuts Sunday, January 15 at 9:00 PM ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream in 4K on HBO Max.