Cary Fukunaga Drops Out Of Directing ‘The Alienist,’ Will Helm ‘The Black Count’ Next

Cary Fukunaga hasn’t really rested a moment since releasing last year’s “Beasts Of No Nation,” and while there hasn’t been much news on the film front, he’s been very busy in television. Over the past year, he’s signed up to direct Jonah Hill and Emma Stone in the TV series “Maniac,” attached himself to HBO‘s brewing miniseries take on Stanley Kubrick‘s “Napoleon,” and lending his producing powers to Ira Sachs‘ limited series “Christodora.” Meanwhile, he’s also long been set to write and direct a miniseries adaptation of Caleb Carr‘s acclaimed thriller “The Alienist” for TNT. However, there’s now been a change in plans with that project.

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Deadline reports that Fukunaga has stepped out of the director’s chair for the series. Instead, he’ll executive produce, and the “The Alienist” will still use his scripts, but when filming begins next year, it will be Jakob Verbruggen (“Black Mirror,” “London Spy,” “House Of Cards“) directing the first two episodes, and possibly more. A bit of bummer, but hell, Fukunaga is crazy busy. However, my main concern is how TNT will handle the absolutely grisly crimes of the story without the ability to be as graphic as HBO or a similar premium outlet. Guess we’ll see.

Anyway, what will Fukunaga do instead? He’ll be putting his attention on “The Black Count.” First announced a couple of years back, it’s an adaptation of Tom Reiss‘ “The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, And The Real Count of Monte Cristo” that tells the remarkable true story of the father of “Count Of Monte Cristo” author Alexandre Dumas, who was born into slavery but managed to become one of the highest ranking military officers in France, rubbing shoulders with Napoleon no less. Intriguing stuff.

So it looks like Fukunaga is shuffling his slate a little bit, and re-prioritizing, but whatever comes next, we’ll be there.