Tag: The Alienist TV Series

Jakob Verbruggen replaces Cary Fukunaga as Director for The Alienist TV Series

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Jakob VerbruggenDeadline reported earlier today that Jakob Verbruggen (The Fall, London Spy, House of Cards) will be replacing Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) as director for The Alienist TV series, set to air on TNT. It has also been revealed that the shooting location has moved again–this time, from New York to Budapest–with filming scheduled to begin in early 2017.

The TV drama series, first announced by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content in April/May of 2014, is said to have had a rocky development road, with Paramount TV and TNT going “back and forth” on a budget over the past year as the filming location was moved from Montreal to New York before finally settling on Budapest. Although Cary Fukunaga will no longer be directing the series, Deadline reports that he has written all episodes of the series, and will be retaining a role as executive producer. It is also reported that Eric Roth, Hossein Amini, and Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin and Rosalie Swedlin will be retaining their roles as executive producers.

Speaking about the decision to bring Jakob Verbruggen on board as director, Sarah Aubrey, the EVP of original programming for TNT, stated: “Jakob will capture the intensity of this edge-of-your-seat thriller. The Alienist’s unique setting and characters, along with its pervasively tense and unsettling mood, couldn’t be in better hands.”

The Alienist at Turner Upfront

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The Turner Upfront presentation for 2016-17 held in Madison Square Garden earlier this week included a teaser for TNT’s upcoming adaptation of The Alienist. According to Deadline, the President of TBS and TNT and Chief Content Officer for Turner Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, who is apparently “a huge fan of the book,” has promised that the TV series “will be marquee programming.”

Although several other trailers have since appeared on TNT’s YouTube channel, the teaser for The Alienist does not appear to have been released online yet. However, the few comments I was able to locate on Twitter from various members of the entertainment press in response to the teaser for The Alienist were positive. Diane Gordon, freelance event reporter for Variety and New York Magazine, described the teaser for the series as having “great production value,” while Michael Schneider, executive editor for Indiewire, revealed that ten scripts for The Alienist have now been finished, and casting is underway.

The Alienist TV Series: No Longer Shooting In Montreal

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Earlier this month it was reported on The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) Montreal website that The Alienist TV series would be shooting in Montreal this summer. On Wednesday of last week, however, Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva reported that, “The Quebec city [Montreal] is losing two American series to New York, as I hear TNT’s straight-to-series The Alienist also recently decided to relocate.”

At this stage, I have been unable to find another source to confirm the report that shooting has moved to New York City. Nonetheless, the series is no longer listed on ACTRA Montreal “What’s Shooting” pre-production list, so at the very least it appears to have been confirmed that shooting has moved from Montreal. It would certainly be exciting to hear that the production has moved to New York — after all, many of the book’s settings still exist, as 17th Street’s maps of Alienist locations demonstrate — so as more news comes to light about this development, it will be reported here.

The Alienist TV Series: Shooting in Montreal this Summer

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The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) Montreal has listed The Alienist TV series on their “What’s Shooting” pre-production list, indicating that Montreal will be getting transformed into 1896 New York City for the series. The listing also indicates that shooting will be taking place in summer this year. While this is clearly an interesting development, it is not altogether unexpected: Montreal has doubled as New York City in a number of films recently, including Brooklyn (2015) and The Walk (2015). You can see the Québec Film and Television Council photos offering Montreal as a shooting location to represent early 20th century New York City here.

Wherever and whenever they are shooting, let’s hope that the script is being reworked before it takes place. For any Alienist readers who did not see the post about the audition recordings surfacing, the excerpts revealed that significant changes were made in the scenes read during casting, both to the characters and the plot. To learn more, you can view the original post here.