AMC and Sony Pictures Television are developing The Night of the Gun, the stark memoir from the late journalist David Carr, into a six-part miniseries to air on AMC. Bob Odenkirk will play Carr, the New York Times media reporter who died last year, and Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Timeless) will write the project.
Odenkirk and Ryan are also executive producers, along with Marc Provissiero of Odenkirk-Provissiero and Joshua Astrachan of Animal Kingdom, which originated the project. Eileen Myers too is an executive producer and writer.
Carr’s book tells the story of the author’s brutal battle with crack cocaine and alcohol, while struggling to raise a young family and advance his career. A seasoned reporter, Carr turned his investigative focus on himself with unsparing honesty, spotlighting the dark chapters of his life he’d long forgotten.
Carr, who wrote the Media Equation column for the Times, died in 2015.
“David Carr's work as a journalist was uncompromising, enlightening, and most of all, always driven by a fundamental quest for the truth. When he turned those skills and values around to focus on his own life as an addict, the result was a stunningly original, compelling and important piece of journalism the likes of which the world had never seen–a simultaneously heartbreaking, funny, and inspirational account that redefined the idea of telling a personal story,” said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV. “Shawn Ryan, Bob Odenkirk and the incredible team behind this have embraced all the things that David would have loved as a storyteller, and crafted a vision for The Night of the Gun that we hope will be as timeless as David’s book.”
Ryan called the book “a searing, hysterical look at the demon of addiction and his journey from the crack pipe to esteemed columnist.”
Odenkirk stars in Better Call Saul.
"I read David's story when it came out and was wildly entertained by his saga,” he said. “It's a story of survival filled with pain, crack, journalistic righteousness, abandoned cars, crooks, lies, and then there's the two little girls who saved his life; it's overstuffed with humanity.”
