Apple announced today that it has greenlit the production of ‘Metropolis’, a television series inspired by the 1927 classic directed by Fritz Lang that will feature Sam Esmail (‘Mr. Robot’, ‘Homecoming’) as the main creative director. Esmail will write and direct all the episodes in this miniseries to be produced by UCP (Universal Content Productions) for Apple. In turn, Esmail will act as executive producer together with Chad Hamilton through his own company, Esmail Corp. At the moment, the company has not advanced any more details about this surely ambitious project that Esmail had been developing for a few years, and whose production is expected to start before the end of this 2022. This is one of the two new miniseries that Apple has announced today. The other will be a historical production in which Michael Douglas will play Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Based on the book ‘A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America’ by Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff, the series, produced by ITV Studios America and Apple Studios, will be backed by Kirk Ellis as screenwriter and Tim Van Patten as director. Douglas, Ellis and Van Patten will in turn be executive producers of this miniseries that will tell us how at 70 years old, and without any diplomatic training, Franklin convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to back America’s experiment in democracy. By virtue of his fame, charisma, and wit, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informants, and hostile colleagues, all while engineering the Franco-American alliance of 1778 and the final peace treaty with England of 1783. The Eight-Year French Mission stands as Franklin’s most vital service to his country, without which the United States would not have won the Revolution.
