Just last week it was revealed that Jude Law (The New Pope) and Taika Waititi (JOJO RABBIT) were in talks to team up for The Auteur, a Showtime series which would be a satire on Hollywood told from the point of view of an eccentric "auteur" played by Law. Today, Showtime made the news official and also dropped a few new details about your new favourite show.
Jude Law will indeed star in The Auteur with Taika Waititi directing the pilot episode as well as co-writing with Peter Warren (GHOST TEAM). Based on the graphic novel by Rick Spears, James Callahan and Luigi Anderson, The Auteur is described as "a gonzo horror-comedy, a twisted romance and a glamorous, high wire act of biting satire. In it, desperate to make a great horror movie after a massive bomb, a film producer accidentally traps his production on a backlot with a serial killer." I'm lovin' it already. In a statement, Showtime's Executive Vice-president of Scripted Programming Amy Israel added:
The Auteur unites the wildly imaginative filmmaker Taika Waititi and the barbed wit of Peter Warren with the undeniable Jude Law in a bloody love letter to the movies that will make you simultaneously die laughing and want to run for your life.
Although Taika Waititi is onboard to helm the pilot episode, there's also the chance that he could direct more episodes of the series, but that will all depend on his availability as he'll be quite busy over the next year. Waititi is in post-production on NEXT GOAL WINS and will start production on THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER later this year, while Jude Law is set to reprise his roles in the third installments of the FANTASTIC BEASTS and SHERLOCK HOLMES franchises.
Jude Law was last seen in the second season of The Young Pope, now titled The New Pope, earlier this year, as well as starring alongside Blake Lively in THE RHYTHM SECTION. He also starred alongside Carrie Coon in THE NEST, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last month. You can check out a review of THE NEST from our own Chris Bumbray right here. As for Taika Waititi, he's fresh off of winning an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for JOJO RABBIT, and will next be appearing in FREE GUY on July 3, 2020 as well as THE SUICIDE SQUAD on August 6, 2021.