David Simon and HBO have collaborated on deep dramatic drives on topics ranging from the drug war in Baltimore, to musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans, to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and now it appears they’ve settled on a subject for their next project: porn. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Simon and writing partner George Pelecanos are developing Deuce, which will focus on “the legalization and subsequent rise of the porn industry in New York’s Times Square from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s,” as well as other uplifting topics like the rising HIV epidemic and cocaine boom of the ’80s.
Simon wasn’t initially on board with the idea, as he explained to THR.
Simon acknowledges that he and Pelecanos were hesitant to take on the project when they first heard from one of their Treme location managers, who’d been researching the life of a man who had been one of the mob fronts on 42nd Street during that era. “He said, ‘You’ve got to hear the guy’s stories,’ ” Simon recalls. “George and I looked at each other and said, ‘I don’t wanna make a porn show. … I’m married with kids and lawn furniture. I don’t want to go there, man. That’s dark.’ ”
But the source’s stories won them over, and so here they are, married old men with kids and lawn furniture and a history of examining the world’s darkest topics, preparing to leap head-first into the grimy world of 1970s Times Square sex hustlers. One day this is all going to wear Simon down and he’ll end up going to HBO with a pitch for a kids’ show about a fluffy talking hero dog whose superpower is hugs that turn villains nice. Swear to God.
(Via THR)
