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HBO has put in development Muscle, a single-camera comedy from Blue Valentine co-writer/director Derek Cianfrance about the subculture of contemporary professional bodybuilding. It is based on Sam Fussell’s memoir Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, which chronicles his four-year stint as a full-time bodybuilder after graduating from Oxford. Cianfrance and Fussell will 
co-write the script, with Cianfrance attached to direct. Both will also co-executive produce, while Blue Valentine producer Jamie Patricof is executive producing with John Lesher and Adam Kassan. It took Cianfrance 12 years to bring Blue Valentine, a personal account of a failing marriage, to the screen. The film, Cianfrance’s second, opened last week with the highest gross among specialty releases. It has been garnering awards buzz, especially for stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Random aside, I never realized that Cianfrance so closely resembled Ryan Gosling from Blue Valentine.
This book was kicking around for a long while too as a potential series vehicle. What changed I wonder.
I think Mr. Schwartzenegger is available for a cameo…
Mmmm, so based off of the success of Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance is now developing a show on HBO…it would be nice to hear that both Lisa Cholodenko and Debra Granik (on her second feature just like Cianfrance) are developing shows with HBO as well!
Or is this just another example of the boy’s club? Can female directors ever break out of the indie ghetto? The men do.
I don’t think she’s particularly talented.
KIDS, the screenplay is kind of awful. It’s lesbians, okay, but if you cover up the characters names, there are no jokes, there are no great lines, it’s all just kind of stale and non-eventful.
shut the front door
How about Lena Dunham, who, after her second feature (though her first to be released commercially) “Tiny Furniture” is farther along in the process than Cianfrance.
The pilot she wrote, directed and starred in for HBO is already in the can.
Dunham’s also got a gig adapting a book and directing it for Rudin.
Sounds like she broke out to me.
This book was the source material for a Sondheim musical, meant to be half of a double-bill with “Passion”. The latter eventually became a full-length (one-act) musical, while “Muscle” was dropped. Then William Finn attempted to adapt this as a musical and that version was dumped.
Wonder how a TV show would handle the change of the character’s body over time. Or would the adaptation be focused on the time after the initial steroid use?
Love the book! Sam Fussell is a wonder. Not sure if it’s evident from the description, but this is a “true” story.