I don't usually like to post about TV casting news, because there isn't much TV that I watch anymore, but when the story involves Danny Boyle and Brit Marling it's tough to ignore. After his trippy heist film Trance (that somehow seems an inadequate description for it) wasn't met with the same audience response as the praise critics heaped upon it, Boyle has been keeping himself busy with other projects. He recently landed the directing gig on a feature version of crime doc Smash & Grab, and he's teaming with Slumdog Millionaire writer Simon Beaufoy on FX's WWII miniseries, Telemark.
Now he's taking to the small screen again by developing Channel 4's cop comedy/drama series, Babylon, with Brit Marling and James Nesbitt (The Hobbit) starring. Boyle will exec-produce and direct the pilot with BAFTA award winners Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong writing the script for the series described as a “razor-sharp and visually audacious,” look at the people and politics in the command rooms and on the frontlines of a modern police force, as it attempts to uphold the peace under constant scrutiny. Marling plays Liz Garvey, a savvy American new-media specialist brought in to help save the London police department's PR department, with Nesbitt as Chief Constable Richard Miller.
Filming begins this fall for an early 2014 airdate, followed by another six episodes later in the year. [Deadline]
