We are in the Golden Era of Television right now and we’re seeing major Hollywood film actors beginning to eye that medium instead. Why? There is more money in it nowadays and they also get more creative control in this streaming era.
“Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “South Park” all reached deals with streaming companies where they will be the exclusive providers of the respective show in the last several months. Each fetched between $450-500 million for a five-year deal. Co-creators of “Seinfeld,” Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, both reportedly pocketed $125 million each.
And now Harrison Ford could take on a starring role in a dramatic television role based on a true story that is somewhat similarly close to his coveted role as Dr. Richard Kimble in “The Fugitive.”
When true crime documentaries are good audiences tend to eat them up. When the first season of “Making a Murderer” premiered on Netflix four years ago, it was a cultural event.
Filmed over a 10-year period, Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted of rape where he served 18 years before finally being exonerated. A few short years later, Avery was charged and convicted of a grisly murder where he still maintains his innocence.
But the popularity of these kinds of true crime stories isn’t new. It spans back decades. It was the advent of streaming services that increased its popularity.
Do you remember Michael Peterson? He was the famous author from North Carolina who was eventually convicted of his wife’s murder with bizarre circumstances back in 2001? Peterson claims he found his wife, Kathleen, at the bottom of a staircase with abrasions to her head and blood all over the place, but prosecutors alleged it couldn’t have been from falling and would have had to be with a sharp blunt instrument.
HBO’s “The Staircase” documented the high-profile murder trial. But in 2016, Peterson was granted a new trial. The new trial was scheduled to begin May 8, 2017, but Peterson submitted to an Alford plea, which reduced his murder charge to manslaughter. He was sentenced to time served and was freed that day.
Netflix released a 13-episode series detailing the aforementioned events of his new trial too.
Now, Harrison Ford is set to star as Peterson in a television dramatization.
The project is currently being shopped to networks and streaming services. Ford is attached to executive produce the series in addition to starring. Antonio Campos will write and executive produce, with Annapurna Television producing.
It’s sort of, kind of, like a man wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife like Dr. Richard Kimble in “The Fugitive.” In fact, many don’t know this but “The Fugitive” was based on a true story, which eventually became a popular television show and then eventually a movie with Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, who also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Ford is not entirely new to television, having made appearances on shows such as “The Virginian,” “The F.B.I.,” and “Gunsmoke” early on before taking off on a wildly successful film career.
So it’s basically been decades since Ford has been in anything associated with television. After all, he is one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
Ford definitely has some mannerisms similar to Peterson, but he’ll have to dig deep because Peterson was also a closet homosexual, a huge bombshell that was revealed during trial when it was discovered he secretly had sexual relations with men behind his wife’s back.