Alan Ball’s Banshee Receives Season Order
Image via collider.com.
Deadline is reporting that pay cable and HBO sister-station Cinemax is moving forward with a new original series. Cinemax has been known during most of its life as the home of movie reruns and softcore adult programming. Following the strategy of cable stations like AMC and premium cable stations such as Starz, it now appears that Cinemax is expanding their original programming that began last year with Strike Back. Now Banshee is being set up at the network with True Blood’s Alan Ball set to run the series.
The action drama, which is being described as Walking Tall meets A History of Violence, has received a 10 episode first season order. Banshee was originally being developed at HBO, but was then handed over to Cinemax and fast-tracked through pre-production soon after Alan Ball signed on. The show is being written by authors Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler, with Emmy-winning director Greg Yaitanes (House) set to direct the pilot.
The Deadline piece that broke the story describes the plot as centering “around an ex-convict master thief who assumes the identity of the sheriff of Banshee, PA, where he continues his criminal activities even as he’s being hunted by the shadowy gangsters he betrayed years earlier.”
Banshee will begin shooting this spring around Charlotte, NC and is set to premiere sometime next year. Fans of Alan Ball’s other series, True Blood, need not worry because apparently the schedules are set up so that he will be able to easily pull double duty to fulfill his commitments to both shows.
