If Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are involved in a project, the odds are good that it’ll be set in their hometown of Boston.
That’s exactly the plan for the duo’s next television drama, “City on a Hill,” which has received a pilot order from Showtime according to a report by Variety. Matt and Ben will serve as executive producers on the series, which is a fictionalized account of how law enforcement was able to successfully tackle the city’s rampant crime problems in the early ’90s, which some have called the “Boston Miracle.”
According to Variety, the show will revolve around an African American district attorney from New York who ships up to Boston to team up with a corrupt FBI agent. The pair ends up going after armored car thieves in a case that “upends the city’s criminal justice system.”
Filmmaker Gavin O’Connor, who worked with Affleck on “The Accountant,” will direct the pilot as well as serve as an executive producer along with “Logan” director James Mangold and “Jason Bourne” producer Jennifer Todd. Bay State native and “Boston Strangler” author Chuck MacLean penned the script, based on an original idea from him and Affleck.
“Chuck wrote a pressure-cooker of a script steeped in the tribal codes of a Shakespeare play—family, blood, betrayal, honor,” O’Connor told Variety. “His take on the ties that bind is handled with a deep honesty and insight. I see the show as a brawling thriller—and an intimate family drama—played out on the rough streets of Boston.”
While it isn’t a shocker that Matt and Ben are working on yet another Boston-set project, it is surprising that the series is going to Showtime. The best buds previously worked on the series “Project Greenlight” for rival network HBO, which failed to get a pick up for a fifth season, which came as a shock to Damon.
As for Affleck, the pilot order is probably a bit good news since it sounds like Mark Wahlberg is going to step in to replace him for Netflix’s upcoming thriller “Triple Frontier.” Perhaps he can make a cameo in “Boston Miracle” when production kicks into gear.
