The Alienist (Event Series)

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True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga to Direct Event Series The Alienist

Deadline is reporting that Emmy-winning “True Detective” director Cary Fukunaga is heading back to the world of serial killers with Anonymous Content and Paramount TV’s event series project “The Alienist.”

Inspired by Caleb Carr’s bestselling 1994 novel, “The Alienist” is set in 1896 New York and follows Dr. Laszlo Kreizler as he teams up with newspaperman John Moore and the-police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt to track down one of New York’s first serial killers using groundbreaking techniques (at the time) like fingerprinting and psychology.

Fukunaga will also executive produce the show along with Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), which is being adapted by Hossein Amini (Drive).

“The Alienist is a fascinating and distinctive, fast-paced psychological thriller that is wonderfully evocative of the unrivaled Gilded Age of New York City,” said Paramount TV president Amy Powell. “Cary Fukunaga’s unique vision and ability to render compelling, distinctive and superbly atmospheric direction is the perfect voice for this television series. We are thrilled to have not only Cary’s expert direction, but also the creativity, imagination and storytelling abilities of the supremely talented Eric Roth and Hossein Amini.”

“We are thrilled that Paramount has entrusted us and our brilliant creative dream team — Eric Roth, Hossein Amini, and Cary Fukunaga — to bring this much beloved, bestselling novel to the screen,” said Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin and Rosalie Swedlin, who will also executive produce the series. “The multi-episodic format will enable us to do justice to the complexity of Caleb Carr’s storytelling and his vivid and detailed portrait of late 19th century New York in all its splendor and grittiness.”

Fukunaga and Anonymous Content previously collaborated on both HBO’s “True Detective” and his forthcoming feature film Beasts of No Nation, which will be distributed by Netflix. He is currently developing a two-part feature adaptation of Stephen King’s IT for Warner Bros.