Guillermo Del Toro Working On HBO Series Based On Manga ‘Monster’
A project once intended to be a feature film is getting a new, different life at HBO.Naoki Urasawa’s mangaMonster— about a disgraced doctor’s global search for a warped young criminal to whom he has very particular ties — is something thatGuillermo del Torowas once negotiating to make at the movie studio. Now he and HBO are working together to turn it into a TV series.
Deadlinereports that del Toro will direct the pilot, which will be scripted bySteven Thompsonand del Toro. (A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olsen had written the feature film version, which has evidently been scrapped.) The director will also act as exec producer. The site also mentions thatMonsteris a partnership with Don Murphy and Susan Montford of Angry Films and Gary Ungar of Exile — Murphy and Montford were players in del Toro’s bid to makeAt the Mountains of Madnessat Universal. There’s no correlation beyond that, just a trainspotter’s sense of tallying figures.Monsterrepresents a great idea for a TV project — it spans many years and, in its manga and later anime incarnations, a large suite of characters.
The story, in short, sees a young doctor electing to save the life of a young boy rather than a visiting official. The doctor is disgraced, and years later, after rebuilding his life to some extent, he crosses paths with the boy once again. The doctor witnesses the boy commit an act of serious violence, and as a result is launched into an investigation of the boy’s past.
There’s a lot more to Monster than that, but in the interest of preserving some mystery we’ll leave it there. We’ll give you more news onMonsteras it develops.
