With HBO recently ordering a Martin Scorsese, Terence Winter, and Mick Jagger-produced drama about a record executive, struggling to find a new purpose amid the explosion of disco and punk in the 1970s, it’s now considering another show that will look at how that search ultimately didn’t matter. Deadline reports that David Fincher is working on a half-hour comedy set in 1983, amid the explosion of the image-driven music video industry that will render pretty much everything Bobby Cannavale’s character achieves in that Scorsese show moot. Tentatively titled Living On Video, the show will likely draw from Fincher’s own experiences directing clips for the likes of Paula Abdul, Billy Idol, and Madonna in its tale of Bobby, a wannabe sci-fi movie director who gets his start working on videos for artists like that or their fictional, libel-skirting counterparts.
Fincher is developing his idea with frequent collaborator Bob Stephenson and Rich Wilkes, a screenwriter who previously tackled the ’90s music scene in Airheads, and the demands it placed on grunge bands to kidnap their local radio hosts. Deadline describes the series as “in the vein of Entourage,” which hopefully is just a handy way of summarizing that it’s a behind-the-scenes comedy about the entertainment industry that will feature rampant drug use and occasional nudity, not that it will be populated by utter jagoffs.
The deal was announced at the same time that HBO reportedly finalized a separate deal for Fincher and James Ellroy’s previously reported crime drama, which will delve into the 1950s world of Los Angeles detectives that Ellroy lives in. It’s hoped that Scorsese and Winter will shortly counter with their own new project that will undo all of their seriousness: a reboot of CHiPs.