Critically acclaimed writer/director David Michôd has been tapped to direct the first episode of Flesh and Bone, the new original series set up at Starz. Writer/director Michôd earned Sundance’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize with his feature film directorial debut, Animal Kingdom, released in the US in 2010.
Animal Kingdom earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Jacki Weaver, multiple Australian Film Institute awards, and was included on the National Board of Review’s list of 2010’s best independent films.
Breaking Bad writer/executive producer Moira Walley-Beckett created the series, which centers around a young ballet dancer with a troubled past who joins a prestigious New York ballet company. Filming is expected to begin later this year in New York City, with Starz eyeing a 2015 premiere.
“I’m entirely enamored of the visual, visceral, artful way David tells a story,” stated creator Moira Walley-Beckett. “His style and sensibility is very much in alignment with my vision of my show.”
“David is perhaps the most exciting filmmaker we’ve seen in quite some time. He is the kind of meticulous craftsman who has the eye to bring forth a character and create such a tension with the viewer that it is palpable,” said managing Director of Starz Carmi Zlotnik. “That is why we are so very excited he will be helping to establish the tone of Flesh and Bone. Moira is writing such complex characters set against the backdrop of a world of beauty and grace, and David has a superb ability to convey this equally thrilling and poignant story.”
The cast is led by dancer Sarah Hay (Black Swan) and includes American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko, current soloist Sascha Radetsky, Ballet Arizona company dancer Raychel Diane Weiner, and Emily Tyra. Ethan Stiefel, Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director and world-renowned former American Ballet Theatre principal dancer, will be the Flesh and Bone choreographer.
