Frank Darabont has had to change the title of his new TNT TV series, originally called L.A. Noir, thanks to the video game L.A. Noire. For his return to TV following being ousted from The Walking Dead, which he developed and was the initial showrunner on, the Academy Award nominated screenwriter chose to adapt the John Buntin book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City – set in the 1940s and 50s and focusing on Los Angeles’ cops and criminals. That book came out in April 2010, a year and a half before L.A. Noire, but in a new interview with i09, Darabont reveals there were still some huge legal difficulties with using the L.A. Noir title for TV.
Said Darabont, with a bit of amusing hyperbole, “It was going to be called L.A. Noir, based on the book by John Buntin. But the video game company with the video game called L.A. Noire (with an e!) threatened to sue the s**t out of me, TNT, every company that actually ever worked in Hollywood. And they have the billions of dollars to back it up, apparently. So we're changing the title, and I do believe the title is going to be Lost Angels.”
Lost Angels re-teams Darabont with The Walking Dead’s Shane Bernthal. In his one reference to his old job, Darabont repeats his friend Sam Witwer’s (Being Human, The Mist) jab about Bernthal being freed from the “shackles” of The Walking Dead.
Jon Bernthal and Pihla Viitala in Lost Angels.
Darabont has high praise for Bernthal, remarking, “He projects this effortless masculine quality, which we don't have a lot of in movies anymore. He's definitely a throwback. He reminds me of, if you were to genetically mix John Garfield a young Charles Bronson this is the guy he's playing on screen. And it's not an effort for him, he projects this fantastic testosterone without showboating it...”
Darabont also tells i09 about Simon Pegg’s appearance in the Lost Angels pilot, explaining, “Simon Pegg, whom I adore, came and played a role for me in this pilot as an American. He plays a stand up comic in 1947. It's not a funny role. It's a serious role. He's laying down a dramatic performance in a flawless, American dialect of the era... People who are Simon Pegg fans will be blown away by what he has done in this. I am his friend, and I've always known he's a very good dramatic actor and I expected great things from him, even my expectations were knocked on my ass by how good he is. So, you have that to look forward to.”
TNT has yet to announce a debut date for Lost Angels, which also features Jeffrey DeMunn (The Walking Dead, The Shawshank Redemption), Jeremy Strong (The Happening, Lincoln), Neal McDonough (Captain America, Justified), Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes), Ron Rifkin (Alias, L.A. Confidential), Pihla Viitala (Tears of April) and Alexa Davalos (Angel, The Mist).
Source : ign[dot]com
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