Nellie Andreeva

HBO has opted not to go forward with All Signs of Death, its dark comedic drama pilot based on Charlie Huston’s 2009 crime noir novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. The project, which was picked up to pilot in July, was written by Huston, with Ball directing and executive producing. Word is HBO brass ultimately couldn’t find a spot for the show. All Signs, which experimented with smaller, portable cameras for a cinema verite style, centers on an inveterate twenty-something slacker (Ben Whishaw) who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale and the loose ends of his own past. All Signs joins another 2010 HBO pilot, Miraculous Year, which didn’t go to series. Of the rest of the pay cable network’s 2010 crop of pilots, Michael Mann/David Milch collaboration Luck has already been ordered to series. The Diane Keaton starrer Tilda is still awaiting word while backup scripts are being written and reshoots on the pilot are being done. The Justin Theroux/Steve Coogan comedy Documental and the Lena Dunham/Judd Apatow comedy Girls are in post-production, while the Armando Iannucci’s comedy Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is now casting for an early 2011 start.

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