Academy Award winner and Hollywood veteran Michael Douglas is stepping into the role of polymath and founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, in an upcoming limited series from Apple TV Plus.
According to Deadline, Douglas will also executive produce the series. It is based on the book, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Stacy Schiff.
The series will focus on Franklin’s engineering of the Franco-American alliance of 1778 in his seventies, without any form of diplomatic training whatsoever.
It will be written by Kirk Ellis, who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Dramatic Special for John Adams. Tim Van Patten will serve as director and has directed episodes of Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Sex and the City, The Sopranos, The Wire, and many more. It will be jointly produced by ITV Studios and Apple Studios.
Douglas recently bid farewell to his role as acting coach Sandy Kominsky in the Netflix comedy-drama, The Kominsky Method. He was nominated for three consecutive Emmy Awards throughout the show’s three-season run. He also recently executive produced the Ryan Murphy Netflix series, Ratched starring Sarah Paulson.
Aside from his upcoming role as Franklin, Douglas will portray former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Reagan & Gorbachev, a Paramount TV limited series. He will also reprise his role as former S.H.I.E.L.D agent Hank Pym in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which will be released on July 28, 2023, as a part of Phase Four of the MCU.