Greg Kinnear to star in US version of ABC’s Rake
As Good As It Gets and Little Miss Sunshine actor Greg Kinnear is set to play an Americanised version of Richard Roxburgh’s Cleaver Greene, the criminal defence lawyer in ABC’s Rake.
The show will be a co-production between Essential Media and Entertainment and Sony Pictures with executive producer of House, Paul Attanasio to EP the series.
Attanasio will also supervise the script to be written by Peter Duncan, who co-created the original series with Roxburgh and Charles Waterstreet.
Chris Hilton, CEO of Essential Media and Entertainment told Encore: “The show was pitched around Los Angeles last week with Peter, Ian Collie, Greg and Paul as well as a number of Sony executives. We pitched to eight networks and the interest level is very high.”
“Almost everyone said they were keen to pilot it so it’s a matter of choosing the best sensibility and price and who seems most committed to it,” Hilton said.
Duncan and Attanasio will executive produce the US version with Roxburgh and Collie.
Hilton said it had not been decided where it would be set, but a city with a history of corruption like Sydney was essential, but that the studio would also need to think about what’s most cost effective.
Hollywood agency CAA is packaging the deal.
The local version first aired on ABC1 in 2010 and is currently in its second series.
I hope they don’t stuff it.
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I hope the ‘Mericans don’t sanitise it!
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Why can’t the Americans take our version and air it? Why do they need to “localise” everything?
We take all of their stuff as is.
Surely the accent is not that hard to understand?
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This series is genius, and the script…GOLDEN.! big fan of Roxburgh, I tried contacting him re: he and the producers re-imaging Paul Newman’s Harper. Roxburgh would be brilliant.?
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