Darren Aronofsky Developing 'Boss Of The Beach' TV Series Based On A Wild True-Crime New York Magazine Article

Darren Aronofsky is going to have to shed his signature scarf to make his next project. The mother! director is developing a TV series with Searchlight Television based on the New York Magazine article "Boss of The Beach," which recounts the crimes of the boss of New York's lifeguard corps. Aronofsky landed the rights to the Boss of the Beach TV series after a competitive bidding situation with 10 other bidders.

Darren Aronofsky is going to finally get some sun with the Boss of the Beach TV series based on the truly wild New York Magazine true-crime article, which recounts the 40-year reign of the boss of New York's lifeguard corps. Deadline reports that Aronofsky is teaming up with Searchlight Television to develop David Gauvey Herbert's New York Magazine article into a TV series, after winning the rights in a competitive bidding situation with 10 other bidders. The series is currently searching for a writer to pen the adaptation, which Herbert will executive produce.

Published on June 23 this year, Herbert's "Boss of the Beach" story details the 40-year reign of Peter Stein, the chief of the New York City's lifeguard corps, the largest in the United States. For the four decades that Stein ran the corps, the organization was "mired in controversy," the article details, with one public advocate calling Stein "the J. Edgar Hoover of lifeguards." Falsified drowning reports, corruption, and favoritism ran amuck during Stein's reign, as detailed in the fascinating longform report, which stands up there as one of the wildest true-crime stories to be reported in recent memory. The whole thing is worth a read.

Deadline doesn't report to what extent Aronofsky will be involved in this series — whether he will be directing or simply executive producing — but this would be the filmmaker's first major foray into television, the only other project being a National Geographic TV documentary series in 2018, One Strange Rock. With Boss of the Beach, Aronofsky would join many other high-profile directors who made the leap to the small screen with the promise of more creative freedom, including David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh, and more. Not that Aronofsky has ever had issues testing the limits of what audiences can handle, with his most recent film, 2017's mother!, famously polarizing audiences. But an offbeat series about lifeguards adapted from "Boss of the Beach," which already has all the makings of a mob-adjacent TV hit, Aronofsky could have some fun in the sun.