Despite displaying early signs of promise, The Departed was one of the early movie-to-TV adaptations that seemed to tumble off Hollywood’s proverbial radar. After all, this is a project that we haven’t heard of in close to six months, and it’s only now that the repackaged, serialized version has been snapped up by Amazon Studios and Warner Bros. that the mob thriller has reemerged to the fore.
Featuring a script penned by Detroit 1-8-7 creator Jason Richman, this version in particular is dubbed as a new spin on the undercover cop set-up glimpsed in Martin Scorsese’s beloved Oscar-winner – itself an adaptation of Hong Kong thriller Internal Affairs.
Case in point: The Departed TV series will swap Boston for the Windy City and is said to be set “at present-day Chicago, amidst the shifting tides of warring ethnic drug gangs. In it, a young cop goes undercover to infiltrate a ruthless Latino gang, which simultaneously plants its own man in the police department. The show follows these two embattled moles as they attempt to fulfill their mission and stay alive.”
Behind the scenes, Amazon will be coordinating with Vertigo Entertainment, Initial Entertainment Group and Plan B Entertainment – the three producing partners that worked on Scorsese’s 2006 mob thriller. That’s an early sign of promise, particularly given how a handful of TV reboots have failed to capture the essence of their cinematic forebear.
No mention of when The Departed will step before the cameras at Amazon Studios, but we’ll update you if and when the studio maps out release plans – not to mention a core cast.
