David Simon
Deadline reported Wednesday that HBO has officially greenlit Show Me a Hero, a six-hour miniseries from David Simon (co-creator of The Wire). The miniseries will star Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis, and the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII) and Catherine Keener (Captain Phillips, Being John Malkovich). Academy Award-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) is set to direct.
The series centers on Nick Wasicsko (Isaac), a big-city mayor who ends up in the middle of a racial controversy brought on when a federal court tasks him to build low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his city of Yonkers, NY.
Simon and Baltimore Sun journalist/The Wire writer William F. Zorzi have adapted Lisa Belkin’s nonfiction book of the same name, which focuses on the real life Yonkers mayor and the precarious situation that managed damage the local government and eventually wreaked havoc on his political career. Keener co-stars as Mary Dorman, a homeowner from East Yonkers who gets involved with the low-income housing battle.
Show Me a Hero is Simon’s third miniseries for HBO, following 2000’s The Corner, which won an Emmy for Best Miniseries, and Generation Kill, which was nominated in the same category. Simon also co-created HBO’s New Orleans drama Treme, whose five-episode final season is up for an Emmy for Best Miniseries this year. Simon, Zorzi, and Haggis will serve as executive producers with Nina Noble and Gail Mutrux.