Get ready for a weekly dose of Aaron Sorkin once again. After a number of celebrated television ventures including “Sports Night,” “The West Wing” and most recently “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip,” Sorkin will soon be back on the small screen, as his hour-long, untitled news-room drama series, formerly called “More As The Story Develops,” was picked up by HBO this week.
A Greg Mottola-helmed pilot has already been shot and completed with the latest announcement meaning we’ll now enjoy watching the cast — Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill, John Gallagher, Jr., Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski and Sam Waterston — verbally firing on all cylinders. The story itself sees Sorkin return to his trademark behind-the-scenes setting, this time in a cable news room, and follows the exploits of an anchor (Daniels), his new executive producer (Mortimer), his newsroom staff and their boss (Waterston) as they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to report the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles, and their own personal entanglements.
Before scripting, Sorkin did extensive research for the project, spending time with MSNBC‘s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as well as at Fox News Channel and CNN programs, though it’s asserted that none of the characters in the project are based on the personalities he shadowed — that’s the claim, anyway. Scott Rudin reunites with his ‘Social Network‘ scribe on this as a producer along side Alan Poul.
The one downside to this announcement? Sorkin’s planned directorial debut detailing the story of Andrew Young, a political aide for John Edwards during his scandalous presidential run, will likely take a back seat. In fact, quite a bit seems to have been set aside by Sorkin for the time being; both the Andrew Young project as well as his other pending miniseries for HBO — a Chateau Marmont-set show being developed with John Krasinski — appear to have been put on the backburner for now. While we’re looking forward to seeing the writer’s work on the small screen again, we’re sure the upcoming Sorkin-scripted “Moneyball” will display exactly why his approaching absence from theaters will be sorely felt.