True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga Returning to TV for The Alienist

By Reuben Levine | Apr 14, 2015

Cary Fukunaga, director of True Detective’s first season, decided to bow-out after the conclusion of that season. For the second season, Fukunaga has moved to an Executive Producer role. But mostly he has decided to fill his time with his own projects, which include an upcoming two-part new adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. You know, the one with the clown.

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Deadline is reporting that Cary Fukunaga will be returning to television with Anonymous Content, the production company behind True Detective. The new “event series” will be an adaptation of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist.

It’s also worth noting that Fukunaga and Anonymous Content also collaborated on Fukunaga’s new film, Beasts of No Nation.

Cary Fukunaga will only be handling directing duties, as the series will be written by Hossein Amini. The Alienist takes involves tracking down one of New York’s first serial killers using the burgeoning field of psychology. Frankly, it jives perfectly with Fukunaga’s True Detective background.

So far there hasn’t been any announcement of distribution, so it’s unclear where The Alienist will end up when all is said and done. It would be nice for Fukunaga and True Detective fans if it ended up with HBO, but it’s too early to tell. Considering that The Alienist and True Detective could potentially end up as competitors, expect to be hearing a lot more about it in the future.

Cary Fukunaga was widely praised for his direction of True Detective even though he lost at the DGA awards. But his attitude of working on the series has turned out to be quite interesting. His most recent film Beasts of No Nation starring Idris Elba will be distributed by Netflix and his version of IT will begin shooting this summer.

Next: Did you catch the True Detective season two trailer before Game of Thrones?

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