'Training Day' TV Series Finds A Home At CBS [Updated]
Antoine Fuqua's film Training Day is still his most significant movie, and it helped propel the career of Suicide Squad writer/director David Ayer. That Best Actor Oscar for star Denzel Washington didn't hurt the film, either. Now there's a Training Day TV show brewing, because of course there is.
The show was Fuqua's idea, and he and original producer Jerry Bruckheimer are putting together a package with Warner Bros. TV. The show pitch is going out to the four major networks, and given the recognizance of the title we could see something come together relatively fast, with Fuqua directing the pilot.
Update: On August 13, CBS won a bidding war amongst the four major networks for the Training Day TV series. And, yeah, that seems a little weird, as CBS seems like pretty much the last place Training Day would be at home. The network goes as far as Criminal Minds when it comes to "gritty," but perhaps things are changing, or perhaps this series will be less hardcore than the film. Deadline says the show has a pilot production commitment, so there's a way to go before full series.
Original story with more details follows.
According to Deadline, former LAPD detective Will Beall (Gangster Squad, Castle) is writing the script for the pilot, which Fuqua would likely direct.
The show is expected to have the same basic premise as the original film, with a tough old detective showing a rookie the ropes. It'll be a present-day show, and Deadline reports that in the series it may be the older cop who is white, and the rookie black.
The language Deadline uses vaguely suggests that this could be a continuation of the film, but I'm not sure that's what is really happening. It would be interesting to see the show focus on the Ethan Hawke character 15 years after the events of the original movie, but that is not necessarily what is being assembled here.
There are a lot of veteran/rookie cop partnerships on TV, and part of what distinguished Training Day was the grit of the script combined with the expertly-crafted relationship between the characters played by Hawke and Washington. So while the title and concept make Training Day seem like a great and possibly even simple translation to television, in fact it might not be an easy feat to make the show stand out from other cop material already available to home viewers.