Director David O. Russell has been a pretty hot commodity in Hollywood since he went behind the camera on the award-winning boxing drama The Fighter. His upcoming films include the Jennifer Lawrence-Bradley Cooper dramedy Silver Linings Playbook and a Jeremy Renner-led project about the FBI sting operation known as Abscam–two highly anticipated projects by low-budget standards.
Perhaps that is why today we are pleasantly surprised that a man seemingly at the top of his career would eye a transition to television. Maybe that is the way of it as we also heard that A-list director Steven Soderbergh also wanted in and the same with Ron Howard. Nonetheless, he is set to helm the pilot episode for an untitled legal drama that CBS just bought.
Attached to the project is a pretty talented team. Robert De Niro will be producing under his banner and Game Change writer Danny Strong will be on board to write it. The union with De Niro is no surprise as the actor plays a supporting role in Silver Linings Playbook which is due out in November.
To get to the meat of it, Deadline says the project was inspired by father-daughter defense attorneys Murray and Stacey Richman. The duo are known for defending some of most high profile of clients. Murray is perhaps the more controversial of the two as he once bragged about winning an acquittal for a guy who stabbed someone seven times by convincing the jury the victim kept backing into the knife.