Showtime has today given a series order to a limited series about Fox News founder Roger Ailes with Academy Award winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) playing the lead role.
The series is based on Gabriel Sherman's extensive reporting and best-selling book The Loudest Voice in the Room.
In today's politically charged media landscape, no figure looms larger, even after his passing, than Roger Ailes, molding Fox News into a force that irrevocably changed the conversation about the highest levels of government. To understand the events that led to the rise of Donald Trump, one must understand Ailes. The upcoming limited series takes on that challenge, focusing primarily on the past decade in which Ailes arguably became the Republican party's de factor 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.
Sherman co-wrote the first episode with Academy Award winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight). They will executive produce with Jason Blum, Alex Metcalf, Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold. Blumhouse Television will produce.
"In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today," said David Nevins, CEO, Showtime. "We've seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era."
