When it was first announced that a TV series adaptation ofMichael Wolff’s best-selling bookFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White Housewas happening, most assumedJay Roachwould be the one to direct it. Well, now it’s official.THRreports that theGame ChangeandRecountfilmmaker has signed on to direct theFire and FuryTV series, continuing his career of helming fictional adaptations of recent real-life politics.
Indeed, while Roach first came to prominence as a comedy director helming films likeAustin PowersandMeet the Parents, he made a sharp left turn with 2008’s HBO movieRecount, which chronicled the recount and subsequent Supreme Court battle in the wake of the 2004 Presidential Election. He followed that up with 2012’s HBO movieGame Change, which revolved around John McCain’s failed presidential campaign and, more specifically, how choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate impacted its trajectory.
Roach hasn’t completely shied away from theatrical features, helming the 2015 biopicTrumbo, but he was recently set to return to HBO to direct a miniseries about the 2016 presidential election betweenDonald TrumpandHillary Clinton. That project was scrapped when authorMark Halperin, off of whose book the show was based, was accused of sexual harassment of five women. His book was dropped by Penguin Press and HBO scrapped the miniseries altogether.
But apparently Roach will get to bring Trump to the screen after all withFire and Fury, based on Wolff’s explosive reporting from inside the White House during the first year of Trump’s presidency. The show is not yet attached to a network and it’s unclear how many episodes it will span, but curiosity will certainly be piqued and it’ll be interesting to see who Roach gets to play Trump.Alec Baldwin’s over-the-top impression wouldn’t really fly for the length of an entire series, but perhaps a more nuanced take by someone likeDarrell Hammondis the way to go.
