The heck do we mean? Well, Joen and Ethan Coen’s Academy Award-winning 1996 Midwestern noir “Fargo” is getting the TV treament at FX. As reported by Deadline, the brothers are developing an hour-long series based on their film at the network — they’ll serve as executive producers on the project alongside Noah Hawley (creator of the cancelled but not tonally that far off cop drama “The Unusuals”), who’ll write.
This isn’t the first time a “Fargo” TV series has been attempted — in 1997, MGM made a pilot without the Coen’s participation, with Kathy Bates directing and a pre-“Sopranos” Edie Falco in the lead role. Clips of this effort occasionally pop up on YouTube only to be rapidly taking down, but it did air alongside other pilots never picked up to series on Trio in 2003. Covering the airing for the New York Times, Emily Nussbaum wrote that it has “a quirky, ‘Northern Exposure’ flavor mingled with a morbid vibe that presages ‘Six Feet Under.'”
MGM TV is also responsible for rebooting “Teen Wolf” as a dark, frequently shirtless supernatural drama at MTV and is readapting “Fame” for the small screen (again). If “Fargo: The Television Series” makes it to screen, it’ll be the Coens’ first foray into the television world — and who knows where this could lead? “Raising Arizona,” the half-hour comedy? “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” — like “Glee,” but old-timey and classically inspired? The TV world is their oyster.
FX recently picked up the rights to adapt Guillermo del Toro’s “The Strain” vampire novels into a TV series, with the filmmaker on board to direct the pilot.
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