Ben Affleck Producing New Show The Middle Man Set in Boston
Becoming Batman wasn’t good enough for Ben Affleck. FOX announced Friday that the big-screen hot-shot will take on the television side of the biz with The Middle Man, a 1960s crime drama set in Boston.
After the wildly successful film The Town, which Affleck directed and starred in, there’s no question that this Boston native is the right producer for the show. The Middle Man centers around an FBI agent, Rudy MacAteer, and Irish-American gangster Mickey Flood, MacAteer’s confidential informant in a fight against the Italian mafia. The Middle Man blurs the line between good and bad as MacAteer and Flood’s rule-bending actions inevitably give rise to the Irish mob in Boston. Ready for a Marky-Mark-DiCaprio-Departed flashback? The Middle Man blurs the line between good and bad as MacAteer and Flood’s rule-bending actions inevitably give rise to the Irish mob in Boston.
It’s no wonder that The Town makes Affleck such a perfect fit for the role, as Deadline reported that Affleck met writers Michael Yebba and Emilio Mauro while filming the 2010 crime drama. With the two, Glenn Gordon Caron, creator of Medium, developed the storyline and wrote the pilot episode of The Middle Man that Affleck will direct. Affleck and Caron will be co-executive producers, with Caron as showrunner. To meet Affleck’s big-screen Boston brawn, Caron brings the television brains.
After development was put on hold while Affleck was busy directing and starring in an Oscar-award-winning movie (yeah, we’ll give him a break for Argo), FOX says casting is slated to begin immediately and the show is set to begin production in 2014.
