It has been 17 years since Quentin Tarantino directed a TV episode for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and now it looks like the Oscar-winning filmmaker is planning to make his TV directorial comeback with FX’s Justified: City Primeval. Deadline brings word that Tarantino has entered early negotiations to helm one or two episodes of the upcoming limited series revival of the Timothy Olyphant-led Western crime drama.
Olyphant, who previously worked with Tarantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is set to reprise his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, after seven years since Justified concluded its six-season run. The miniseries will based on another one of Elmore Leonard novels titled City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit.
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Justified: City Primeval will be co-written and executive produced by Dave Andron, Michael Dinner, Taylor Elmore, and Chris Provenzano, with Andron and Dinner serving as showrunners. In addition to starring, Olyphant will also be executive producing along with Justified creator Graham Yost, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, and Peter Leonard.
Pick up your copy of the novel here.
“It picks up with Givens eight years after he left Kentucky behind,” reads the series synopsis. “He now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind. A chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and aims to do so again. Mansell’s lawyer, formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, has every intention of representing her client, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well.”
The limited series will also be written by V.J. Boyd, Eisa Davis, and Ingrid Escajeda. It is produced by Sony Pictures Television and FX Productions.
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Justified aired for six seasons on FX between 2010-2015, winning a Peabody Award in 2011. The series earned eight Emmy nominations, including one for Olyphant for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2011. In 2011, Margo Martindale won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Mags Bennett, while Jeremy Davies also won an Emmy for his role as Dickie Bennett in 2012.
