It may sound hard to believe considering the dryness and sheer weight of this epic report, but Coming Soon have the story from Variety.
Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment has signed a deal with NBC Universal TV to produce an eight-hour miniseries based on the bestselling book, 9/11 Commission Report…, which documents events leading up to the nation’s worst-ever terrorist attack.
Graham Yost, writer of Boomtown and two episodes of Band of Brothers, will write and executive produce. Variety says…no director has been set.
Grazer said the series will start with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and take the viewer through the currents in the Islamic world and intelligence failures that led to the terrorist attacks in 2001.
With the sensitivity of the topic it does sound promising that they have an excellent writer on board. As the post says, and I have yet to experience myself, the book has a compelling narrative to it, so the treatment shouldn’t be too hard other than making it unbiased and taking care to be sympathetic to all involved.
Looking at some Boomtown and Band of Brothers episodes you can begin to imagine that it will meet up to that. Just have to hope that the Director choice matches that viewpoint.
They should get that guy who plays Bush all the time — who he played in a sitcom and a 9/11 telemovie. Michael Moore should cast him in his F-911 sequel.
This could be epic if done correctly. I think you’re right John in that we simply have to hope that the same standards that were applied to Band of Brothers and Boomtown to make them outstanding TV are applied to this project. I wished they’d have signed the deal with HBO so that they could really go to town with it.