The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth director, Guillermo del Toro, has signed on to develop a TV series based on Corinne May Botz’s book, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, at HBO. Del Toro will be joined by Southland writer Sara Gran on the project.
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death series will follow grandmother, dollhouse-maker, and master criminal investigator, Frances Glessner Lee as she becomes obsessed with solving brutal crimes, and even creating elaborate dollhouse replicas of real crime scenes to aid in investigations.
No word on whether the series will try to take on true-life crime stories in the same way The Newsroom has tackled real-life news stories, but I think doing something like that would add a new and interesting layer to the show.
Del Toro will executive produce the series, and may even direct the pilot, while Gran will co-executive produce along with her writing duties. Furthermore, Botz will serve as a consultant on the series, making sure even the smallest details are brought to life as authentically as possible.
This will mark Guillermo del Toro‘s second recent foray into TV, with The Incredible Hulk setup at ABC, waiting for a new writer to come in to do a rewrite.
As we get more details on this promising project, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.