‘Justified’: Quentin Tarantino in Talks to Direct Episodes of FX Revival
Academy Award winner Quentin Tarantino is in early talks to direct one or two episodes of FX‘s upcoming Justified revival starring Timothy Olyphant.
As first reported by Deadline, the Django Unchained director has been tapped for Justified: City of Primeval, the revival that will see Olyphant reprise his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Talks are apparently still in their early stages, and no one from FX or Tarantino’s camp has commented on the situation.
Tarantino and Olyphant are no strangers to one another. Olyphant starred as James Stacy in the famed director’s most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino is also a known fan of Elmore Leonard, the author who created the Givens character — Tarantino previously adapted Leonard’s novel Rum Punch into his 1997 film Jackie Brown and has optioned other titles.
Justified: City of Primeval was picked up in January and is based on Leonard’s novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. It is set to pick up eight years after Givens left Kentucky behind; now living in Miami, Givens struggles to balance his life as a U.S. Marshal and a part-time father of a 14-year-old girl.
After a chance encounter on a Florida highway, Givens finds himself heading to Detroit, where he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent sociopath who’s already slipped past Detroit law enforcement before and wants to do so again.
Dave Andron and Michael Dinner will write the series while also serving as showrunners and executive producers. Dinner will also be directing while Olyphant is executive producing, alongside Justified creator Graham Yost.
Tarantino’s previous television directing work includes an episode of ER in 1995 and an episode of CSI in 2005. Last year, he released his first novel under a two-book deal with HarperCollins, a novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His second book is expected to be about the films of the New Hollywood era, inspired by film critic Pauline Kael.
Justified: City of Primeval, TBA, FX
