According to Entertainment Weekly, Showtime has greenlighted an eight-episode miniseries that will give a “behind-the-scenes look at the rise of Fox News and the cable news network’s controversial former chief Roger Ailes.” The Loudest Voice in the Room is based on Gabriel Sherman’s eponymous, 2014 bestselling biography—but don’t go confusing it with the upcoming Roger Ailes movie that stars Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly. Overall, we’re looking at a very Ailes-y future.
Russell Crowe, an actor who you may also know for his apparent casual misogyny and alleged hurling of racial slurs, will portray the Fox head, who resigned from his CEO role after decades of sexual misconduct and, uh, creating Trump’s America. He died last year but his legacy lives on in the hellscape where we currently reside.
Showtime shared a statement on the the miniseries:
“To understand the events that led to the rise of Donald Trump, one must understand Ailes. Theupcoming limited series takes on that challenge, focusing primarily on the past decade in which Ailes arguably became the Republican Party’s de facto leader, while flashing back to defining events in Ailes’ life, including an initial meeting with Richard Nixon on the set of The Mike Douglas Show that gave birth to Ailes’ political career and the sexual harassment accusations and settlements that brought his Fox News reign to an end.
Told through multiple points of view, the limited series aims to shed light on the psychology that drives the political process from the top down. McCarthy’s deft handling of similarly complex, high-stakes storytelling in Spotlight earned him an Oscar for co-writing 2017’s Academy Award winner for best picture, plus an Oscar nomination for directing. For the primary source material, The Loudest Voice in the Room, Sherman interviewed more than 600 people.”
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to be bombarded with even more television that directly reflects the worst parts of the recent past.