Like many directors, William Friedkin is fed up with trying to get his work seen in a cinema landscape that only values blockbuster spectacles. “I don’t want to make a feature film, because I don’t want to make a movie about a guy in a mask and a spandex suit flying around and saving the world,” Friedkin says in a new interview with Movies.com. “And if you do make a serious film today, the chances are it won’t have a bright future in theaters.”
Also like so many of his colleagues, Friedkin is combatting this by turning to TV. “The only thing I’m interested in now is long form, which is what you’d call television,” he says, citing Fargo and The Normal Heart as examples of how the small screen has eclipsed the big one artistically. This would explain his openness to “long-form” TV adaptations of his films To Live And Die In L.A. and Killer Joe; Friedkin says both are currently being developed for TV, and although neither will follow the same storyline as the films they’re based on, each will retain the “vibe” of the original.
As for his personal involvement, Friedkin says he may direct the pilot for To Live And Die In L.A., but only if he likes the script. Details on Killer Joe are still sketchy, but Friedkin does suggest that the series, about “a Dallas detective who is a hired killer,” will be “very edgy.”