The original director for the third season of HBO's 'True Detective" was supposed to be Jeremy Saulnier (“Green Room,” “Blue Ruin”) but “creative differences” with creator Nic Pizzolatto, following the completion of just two episodes, had Saulnier entirely scrapped from the project. Enter the hiring of director Daniel Sackheim, known for directing several episodes of FX‘s “The Americans,” and Pizzolatto himself who would be directing around 60% of the show. Good God. You go from hiring a cinematic talent such as Saulnier to getting a TV director to replace him?
I had spoken to Saulnier earlier last month and asked him about the issues he and Nic had with their collaboration. Referring to his time with Pizzolatto, he jokingly, or not, mentioned that it felt like "Nic had repeatedly stabbed me in the face with a knife." Yikes.
The clash of two creative minds can sometimes involve very nasty business and that seems to be exactly what happened with this latest season of "True Detective." Now, if only we can find a way to watch Saulnier's original episodes.
Pizzolatto had struck gold with season one of "True Detective," which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, but he then entered a sophomore slump with the abnormally bad second season starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams. That last season completely destroyed my expectations of Pizzolatto, whom, at first, I thought might be some kind of creative genius but now ... I'm just not sure.
The biggest difference for me, from that failed second season, safe for the poor script and plotting, was the absence of the original season's director, Cary Fukunaga. A California-born filmmaker, Fukunaga, just 41-years-of-age, started off his directorial career on the big screen with the success of "Sin Nombre," which was a scathing indictment of the MS-13 gangs ravaging Mexico, and the United States. However, "True Detective"made him a major player in Hollywood, so much so that Netflix immediately hired him, post 'Detective,' to direct "Beasts of No Nation," a critically acclaimed Netflix Original about child soldiers in Ghana which proved that Fukunaga was, in fact, the real deal. He is now teaming up with Netflix again for his next project, the mini-series "Maniac," starring Jonah Hill and Emma Stone.
This third season stars Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Ray Fisher, Scoot McNairy and Mamie Gummer and will premiere on HBO January 2019.
Rodrigo Perez over at The Playlist has this synopsis:
“True Detective” 3 plays out over several time periods. Set in the Ozarks with the ambitious story involving “a macabre crime” and “a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods,” Ali plays police detective Wayne Hayes. Stephen Dorff plays his partner, Detective Roland West, an Arkansas State Investigator and Carmen Ejogo is Amelia Reardon, an Arkansas schoolteacher who has a connection to two missing children in 1980."
Can't say this doesn't sound, at the very least, intriguing.
“True Detective” Season 3 premieres January 13 on HBO.
Netflix and Skydance Animation have also called it quits. The two sides announced Monday that they're ending the animated film deal struck back in 2023, framing it as a mutual decision.