The LES Goes Back To Its Past, Courtesy Steven Soderberg

I saw this remarkable picture on Twitter yesterday, shared by the Bedford & Bowery Blog (there are a few more shots on their site as well). This is not a Hollywood set but the actual corner of Orchard and Broome Street, redressed with hay and dirt to look like New York City circa 1900. All this effort was done for a new miniseries that Steven Soderberg is directing about the Knickerbocker Hospital, entitled THE KNICKS. The show is about doctors and nurses at the hosptial and the then-revolutionary treatments they used in an era of disease and high mortality rates.

It's amazing they went to this all effort to recreate this old fashioned street but, in the end, it was probably cheaper than a) building this on a backlot and b) doing it as a CGI-genereated faux street scape. As the price of EFX has risen sharply, the new mantra in Hollywood these days is "don't fix it in post"--- whereas the old mantra used to be the opposite.  

Oscar Nominated Doc To Become ABC Miniseries

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, the acclaimed indie doc about the AIDS activism movement of the 1980's and 90's, may have lost at the Oscars (to the feel-good crowd-pleaser SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN) but it's winning in the world of television. The Hollywood Reporter today announced a deal for the feature length movie to be turned into a mini-series saga for ABC. It's surprising news on multiple fronts; not only is the mini-series format returning to network television after a long absence but it will also be telling the remarkable story of AIDS activism and how it lead to the modern LGBT civil rights movement. 

The documentary, produced by my friend and fellow filmmaker Howard Gertler along with director David France, was incredible and  my only critique was that I wanted to know more about these incredible activists. So now that wish will be answered in a major way this with new multi-hour series exploring the characters who made these remarkable changes in the FDA drug approval system and saved the lives of thousands of people infected with HIV. 

There are scant details so far about timing of this series as the show is in development but I look forward to hearing more and seeing it on the "little screen" soon.