TV executives are always chasing that youthful marketing demographic. Anyone young with disposable income—tweens, teens, maybe even the oldsters in the 18-24 demographic. Get the kids, the advertising dollars follow. That’s surely the reason for NBC’s latest move: Deadline reports the network has signed up to produce The Decalogue, a remake of the masterful 10-part TV series by acclaimed Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieślowski (Three Colors).
It’s a move that cannily traffics in the hot TV auteur trend, as Kieślowski—known as the Seth MacFarland of Poland’s late Soviet era—directed and co-wrote each of the ten hourlong films in the original series. Plus, each one is based on one of the Ten Commandments. That allows NBC to tap into that big-money Christian market, much as Kieślowski was trying to do with his searching meditations on the nature of morality and existence in a world just beginning to embrace democracy amid the ruins of the Communist regime. And that setting—the decaying political morass of Poland—will be similarly adapted to the decaying morass of Boston, a city equally known for meditative existential art and being incredibly nice and welcoming. No word yet on who will be starring in NBC’s Decalogue, although the network is probably itching to give Zachary Quinto a few more chances to slap people.