‘Game Change’ Filmmakers to Produce HBO Miniseries About 2016 Presidential Election
HBO had another notable programming announcement on Thursday besides the return of Game of Thrones, and we didn’t even have to sit through a block of melting ice to get it. The premium network said that it is planning a miniseries about Donald Trump’s dramatic, improbable victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, based on the upcoming third installment of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Game Change series of campaign books.
Halperin and Heilemann’s book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime was published in 2010, and was followed in four years later by Double Down: Game Change 2012. Their upcoming third book, about the 2016 campaign, was announced today.
HBO memorably adapted Halperin and Heilemann’s first book in the 2012 original movie Game Change, which followed the John McCain campaign as the senator took on Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. That film starred Ed Harris as McCain, Julianne Moore as vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Woody Harrelson as McCain senior campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. It won five Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes and a Peabody Award.
Can this next production have similar results? HBO is certainly trying, with the filmmakers from Game Change back to produce this miniseries. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman of Playtone are executive producing with Jay Roach, who is also back as director. No writer is attached to the project yet, and, clearly, no casting as been announced yet either, though people will certainly be watching with fascination to see who the production gets to play the two candidates.
“We are thrilled to continue our relationship with Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, whose work on their bestselling book Game Change set the bar for political reporting and storytelling inside a presidential campaign,” said Len Amato, president of HBO Films. “Reuniting Game Change director and executive producer Jay Roach and Playtone producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman with Mark and John for a project based on their upcoming book promises to vividly capture the most unique and impactful event in modern American politics.”
