Bob Odenkirk and Shawn Ryan Team For AMC Miniseries NIGHT OF THE GUN
Shawn Ryan is the man behind solid TV shows like The Shield, Terriers, and The Chicago Code, so I'm always happy to hear about any new project he has in the pipeline. The latest is Night of the Gun, a six-episode miniseries based on the memoir of New York Times journalist David Carr that will star Bob Odenkirk and air on AMC, the network responsible for Odenkirk joints like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Ryan is set to write the series, and he and Odenkirk are executive producing.
Carr, who died in 2015, was a hugely respected journalist who wrote for the NYT for thirteen years. He was a terrific writer who at one point struggled with addiction to crack, and his memoir — "a searing, hysterical look at the demon of addiction and his journey from the crack pipe to esteemed columnist for The New York Times" — and this show will explore that transition. Here's AMC's statement:
“David Carr’s work as a journalist was uncompromising, enlightening, and most of all, always driven by a fundamental quest for the truth. When he turned those skills and values around to focus on his own life as an addict, the result was a stunningly original, compelling and important piece of journalism the likes of which the world had never seen – a simultaneously heartbreaking, funny, and inspirational account that redefined the idea of telling a personal story,” said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV. “Shawn Ryan, Bob Odenkirk, and the incredible team behind this have embraced all the things that David would have loved as a storyteller, and crafted a vision for ‘The Night of the Gun’ that we hope will be as timeless as David’s book."
And here's Odenkirk's:
"I read David’s story, ‘The Night of the Gun,’ when it came out and was wildly entertained by his saga. It’s a story of survival filled with pain, crack, journalistic righteousness, abandoned cars, crooks, lies, and then there’s the two little girls who saved his life; it’s overstuffed with humanity. Shawn Ryan is the man to explore this real anti-hero story. I hope to do justice to David’s intellect and his scrappy nature. It’s gonna be crazy… if we do it right."
As a fan of all four things involved in this story — David Carr, AMC, Shawn Ryan, and Bob Odenkirk — I'm very excited to see how this miniseries turns out.