Logo

Piers Morgan to Executive Produce Starz Project About a Subject That’s Right in His Wheelhouse

May 8, 2013  •  Post A Comment

Piers Morgan has a new drama project in the works at Starz that focuses on subject matter that should be familiar to the CNN talk host. The Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed reports that Morgan will executive produce “Fleet Street,” a period piece about tabloid journalism.

Morgan is a former tabloid editor who worked in the U.K. at The Sun, News of the World and The Daily Mirror, the report notes.

“’Fleet Street’ is set in England in the 1970s and will chronicle the rise of tabloid journalism, the sexual revolution and class warfare — told through the eyes of an American journalist,” the story reports. “The drama hails from Lionsgate Television (which produced ‘Boss’ for Starz) in association with Richard Branson’s Virgin Produced, Octagon Entertainment and Morgan’s Ferrett Productions. Morgan (CNN’s ‘Piers Morgan Live,’ ‘America’s Got Talent’) will executive produce alongside Octagon managing director John Ferriter (‘Arsenio Hall Show’) and Virgin’s Jason Felts, Justin Berfield and Michael Forman. BAFTA-winning screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst (U.K.’s ‘Shameless,’ ‘Clocking Off’) will pen the pilot and executive produce.”

In a statement today announcing the project, Morgan said: “Imagine an industry where every single opponent worked in the same street, competing with each other by day — drinking, brawling, fornicating, night clubbing and cocaine-snorting with each other by night. A street full of the most ruthless and amoral people in the world existed, and it was called Fleet Street. In the early ’70s, it became the breeding ground for modern popular journalism, as foreign media tycoons stomped over the British establishment to re-define ‘news,’ suddenly exposing the rich, powerful and famous in spectacular front-page scoops. It was the dawn of the celebrity era, in all its gruesome detail — a revolution that changed pop culture.”

The report notes: “For Starz, Fleet Street comes as the premium cable network is ramping up its original scripted fare as it is set to lose its portfolio of Disney films in 2016. Starz is scheduled to launch at least four scripted series in 2013, including the recently completed final season of ‘Spartacus,’ season two of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s ‘Magic City,’ freshman period drama ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’ — which has already been renewed for a second season — and new limited series ‘The White Queen’ with Janet McTeer.”

Your Comment

Email (will not be published)