It was earlier this year when we first heard of talk aboutThe Departed,Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Boston-set crime epic,heading to television from producerRoy Lee. It makes more sense than most major movies that have found a second life on television, if only becauseInfernal Affairs, the original Chinese film that served as the blueprint forThe Departed, was only the first entry in a trilogy of action films. There’s plenty of story that has yet to be mined from the original trilogy, and that’s only if the writers of the new series stick with the source material rather than looking for their own narrative world to craft.
Well,according to Deadline,The Departedseries is not only further into development with a new variation on the setting and the subject matter all set, it’s also got a development backer in Amazon. This would mean that, if the series is ordered, it would almost certainly air on Amazon. The TV series will focus on a powerful Latino gang in Chicago that embeds one of its own in the police department at the same time that the police plant one of their own as an undercover in the gang. Beyond that, there’s not much else known about where the series will go, butDetroit 1-8-7creatorJason Richmanhas written the pilot for the series and will likely lead the writers' room for the show.
If the series is picked up to order, this would make the second of two major pick-ups based on major titles from Amazon in this last month. Not all that long ago, they put inan order forTom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, based on Clancy’s most famous character, the titular young, smart, and ambitious intelligence officer who rises through the governmental ranks. In that series,John Krasinskiwill play Ryan, following in the grand tradition ofHarrison Ford,Ben Affleck,Alec Baldwin, and, most recently,Chris Pine. Now, we must wait around to hear who will be appearing in the four or five big central roles inThe Departed, specifically the two duplicitous leads.
