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David Milch, Michael Mann team for HBO horse-racing drama

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N

Nemo

Will Eat Your Children
Nice. I like the theme. Not much of a horse racing fan but when done right as a drama and HBO material? Sign me the fuck up
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- Esquire: David Milch Does Not Believe in Genres - The creator of Deadwood on True Grit, the future of the Western, and HBO's next great masterpiece (it's great — we've seen it!)
Esquire said:
The setting of his next show isn't so arbitrary. Scheduled to air later this year on HBO, Luck takes place in the world of horse racing, which Milch knows only too well. "When I was a kid," he says, "my dad used to take me out to the race track and so many formative experiences have to do with associations like that. My relationship with the track was, I would say, at least fractionally as complicated as my relationship with my old man. So it kept me coming back."

The organizing illusion in Luck is the notion that a horse crossing the finish line before another can truly change a man's life. As with Deadwood, the show's characters include all the men and women even peripherally invested in that illusion: jockeys, owners, trainers, low-lifes, misfits, criminals both petty and grand — notably Chester "Ace" Bernstein, played by a triumphant Dustin Hoffman. Milch's world of horse racing is different from his cops-and-robbers past, and not because the jockey genre is currently limited to, like, Seabiscuit. Because Deadwood is much the same, too — every man for himself, as long as every man agrees it's a prize worth winning.

Watching the Michael Mann-directed pilot, it's hard not see Hoffman as the equivalent of Deadwood's Al Swearengen: a deeply flawed, admittedly destructive man happy not to play by the rules, but ultimately more decent than he’d liked to admit. But Milch isn’t out to repeat himself, or please the fans of his previous shows.

"To think in terms of what the effect of a story is going to be as opposed to trying to discover its inner logic, is one of the fundamental dangers in the process," he says. "I'm just going to try and hit the ball straight and we'll see what field it turns out to be on."
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D

Discotheque

Banned
Is Mann just directing the pilot and abandoning project entirely? Or will he stay on as a producer? Because having his look all over the show would be fantastic. Miami Vice series has some really baller shots still.
 
C

Count of Monte Sawed-Off

un33dab@dpu$$y
Definitely my most anticipated HBO show (now that Game of Thrones is showing). Preview looked good. Between this, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, HBO will be awesome again.
 
B

brianjones

Member
looks awesome

i had my doubts about house racing but damn


Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
Definitely my most anticipated HBO show (now that Game of Thrones is showing). Preview looked good. Between this, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, HBO will be awesome again.
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the only thing we need now is david chase's new mini series
 
V

vordhosbn

Banned
Witchfinder General said:
I've only seen Public Enemies but I loved it.
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Arguably his most boring, it's 2 somewhat hours of inaudible dialogue and random shaky shots of 1930s America.

Also what was up with the CG shot of Depp jumping over the counter? He's almost a worse decision maker visually than Robert Zemeckis.
 
W

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
vordhosbn said:
Arguably his most boring, it's 2 somewhat hours of inaudible dialogue and random shaky shots of 1930s America.

Also what was up with the CG shot of Depp jumping over the counter? He's almost a worse decision maker visually than Robert Zemeckis.
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Still better than anything I've seen of Snyder.

Besides, the whole Mann thing is misdrection; the reason everyone in this thread is excited over the series is not because of horse racing but because the show is the work of Deadwood creator David Milch. Michael Bay could be directing the series and I wouldn't care.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Solo said:
Mann + Milch = teaming of gods = day one.
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Agreed (lets just forget about john from cincinatti with the exception of that great opening song)

Plus this is Mann's first tv project since what? Miami Vice? Oh man...hype. I can already picture how stylized the pilot is gonna be. Ohmahgawd I totally forgot Hoffman and Nolte were in this. wow

if all goes well I'll probably enjoy this more than even Boardwalk currently.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
The pilot script, at least, is really good. There are a lot of plot threads and characters, so it doesn't have a lot of time to delve into each (Hoffman's character, for instance, barely gets any screen time) but what it introduces shows lots of promise - the small group of degenerate gamblers being my favorite.
 
O

overcast

Member
vordhosbn said:
Arguably his most boring, it's 2 somewhat hours of inaudible dialogue and random shaky shots of 1930s America.

Also what was up with the CG shot of Depp jumping over the counter? He's almost a worse decision maker visually than Robert Zemeckis.
Click to expand...
Lol. Have you seen Collateral, Heat, or The Insider? Get out of here with that boring comment. I don't know why you weren't avartar quoted. Guess Snyder is more your type of film maker.
 
B

BeeDog

Member
Clevinger said:
The pilot script, at least, is really good. There are a lot of plot threads and characters, so it doesn't have a lot of time to delve into each (Hoffman's character, for instance, barely gets any screen time) but what it introduces shows lots of promise - the small group of degenerate gamblers being my favorite.
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I really don't know anything about this show outside of the pedigree behind it. What kind of thematical stuff will the show deal with (e.g. corruption, killings, regular human drama, tragedies, etc.)?
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Don't even bother. You could tell he was trolling when he called Mann a bad decision maker visually.

Even if you find his films boring you can't deny how good they look sometimes.

edit: It looks like this show's more crime oriented than I thought. Crooked Gamblers and a shady mob boss played by Hoffman?
 
S

Spinning Plates

Member
Since it looks like this show will be the next big thing is it safe to assume that HBO wont want to air it and Boardwalk Empire S2 together meaning we'll have to wait till 2012 to see Luck?

Also will Mann be directing any more episodes other than the Pilot?

-
 
S

Sent

Member
DevelopmentArrested said:
Can't really blame Milch for that, actually. What is up with HBO, former showrunners and bad show ideas? I don't expect anything to be better than Deadwood or The Wire.. but horse-racing and buskers in New Orleans? Surely, Simon and Milch can do something better.
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It'll happen one day, obviously....why not this show?
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Spinning Plates said:
Since it looks like this show will be the next big thing is it safe to assume that HBO wont want to air it and Boardwalk Empire S2 together meaning we'll have to wait till 2012 to see Luck?

Also will Mann be directing any more episodes other than the Pilot?

-
Click to expand...

It's a Milch show. It'll be about as big as a gnat. Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire (yuck) will be their tentpoles. All we can hope for is that they won't cancel this before we get a few seasons.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
BenjaminBirdie said:
Wow. Spoilers for a show that probably won't even air this season. Literally did not see that coming.
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It's really only the premise of each plot line. But if I spoiled something for you, I apologize.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Clevinger said:
It's really only the premise of each plot line. But if I spoiled something for you, I apologize.
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Oh not me. I saw the big wall of text, knew you'd read the pilot and ran. It might not have spoiled anything for all I know.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
Looks like Milch and Mann butted heads quite a lot during production.

Surprising probably no one, two of the most brilliant, quirky and titanic personalities in Hollywood clashed so relentlessly that, according to sources, Mann at one point had Milch banned from the set.

HBO acknowledges that the two butted heads in the early going, when Mann closed the set while directing the pilot. "There were clashes on the pilot, although never about the content of the show or its vision," HBO programming president Michael Lombardo tells THR in an e-mail. "However, these two enormous talents, after viewing the pilot together, figured out a way to collaborate and make this work going forward on the series."

After what an HBO source describes as "serious" discussions, Milch has the final word on scripts, but Mann decides everything else, from casting to cutting to music.
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A couple things are unfortunate with this. Milch is great at directing his actors. Also, lots of writing on Deadwood and NYPD Blue was improvised on set. To lose those due to ego is a damn shame. And there will only be nine episodes, one less than the already short ten.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
The Hollywood Reporter said:
At this point, work is in progress on that ninth episode. HBO has yet to determine when Luck will premiere, but it likely won't debut until early next year.
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Sounds like we might not see it until next year.
 
B

Blader

Member
RatskyWatsky said:
*bow*David Milch*bow* This looks amazing. Do we know when it premieres? Is it the Fall?
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I think winter is more likely. Maybe it'll take Boardwalk Empire's slot when that finishes.
 
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