Jeff Daniels is an underrated talent. Purple Rose of Cairo, Something Wild, Gettysberg. The man even played George Washington in the TV movie The Crossing. Now the actor has been tapped by recent Oscar winner, Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), to headline his new HBO drama pilot that centers on the inner-workings of a cable news show.
Tentatively titled More As the Story Develops, Sorkin will be making his third foray into the fly-on-the-wall atmosphere of the development of television programs. First was the critically acclaimed but short-lived ABC series Sports Night (which was a take on ESPN’s SportsCenter). Then after the success of The West Wing, Sorkin returned to the TV landscape with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which only lasted a single season on NBC. It took the mold of a variety show a la Saturday Night Live.
Free of network constraints, the series will be Sorkin’s first for cable. He will serve in an executive producer capacity along with Scott Rudin, a top-tier Hollywood producer, having produced both The Social Network and True Grit last year. Daniels will play news anchor Will McCallister who has his own cable show.
Although the program may be Sorkin’s first on cable, I expect his staccato dialogue to remain intact as well as the walk-and-talk camera movement technique.
Here’s a refresher:
