Quentin Tarantino In Talks To Direct Episodes Of Timothy Olyphant-Led Series Justified: City Primeval
Quentin Tarantino's return to the screen could come in the form of a TV project. Tarantino is reportedly in talks to helm an episode or two of the upcoming FX limited series, "Justified: City Primeval," which would reunite him with star Timothy Olyphant, who appeared in Tarantino's last film, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."
"Justified: City Primeval" is a sequel to the Emmy-winning "Justified," which ran for six seasons on FX. In the series, Olyphant portrayed U.S Marshal Raylan Givens, based on a character from the Elmore Leonard short story, "Fire in the Hole." The Givens character also appeared in the novels "Pronto" and "Riding the Rap," and, most recently, "Raylan," which Leonard published in 2012 after the success of "Justified" on TV.
"Justified: City Primeval," is adapted from a different Leonard novel, "City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit," with Givens taking the place of the book's original protagonist, Detective Raymond Cruz.
Tarantino is a Leonard fan and has directed TV before
Tarantino most famously adapted Leonard's novel "Rum Punch" into "Jackie Brown" in 1997, but according to Deadline, he has optioned other Leonard titles and discussed the potential of directing an adaptation of "Forty Lashes Less One" as another Western of his. He has also worked in TV before, helming an episode of "CSI" in 2005 and an episode of "ER" in 1995; the latter of those paired him with George Clooney, who would rise to movie stardom the following year after he and Tarantino played the fugitive Gecko brothers in "From Dusk Till Dawn."
As we previously reported, "Justified: City Primeval" is bringing back writer Dave Andron and director Michael Dinner as showrunners, along with Graham Yost, the creator of the original series, and Sarah Timberman, Peter Leonard, and Carl Beverly as executive producers. Deadline adds that Dinner will be "the lead director on the show," so Tarantino would seemingly be a guest director, just doing another one-off (or two-off), if he does sign on.
Here's the plot synopsis for "Justified: City Primeval:"
Having left the hollers of Kentucky eight years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind.
A chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who's already slipped through the fingers of Detroit's finest once and aims to do so again. Mansell's lawyer, formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, has every intention of representing her client, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well. These three characters set out on a collision course in classic Elmore Leonard fashion, to see who makes it out of the City Primeval alive.