Decades before the likes of Law & Order, there was Perry Mason, a legal drama series that ran for nine seasons in the 50s and 60s, and which became one of the five most popular shows on TV. It’s been revived before, back in the early 70s, but it wasn’t a success.
That hasn’t dissuaded HBO, though. The network has been trying to get a Perry Mason reboot off the ground for ages, and if you vaguely remember hearing something about this previously, it’s because True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto was on board at one point, with Robert Downey Jr keen to star. Sadly, all of that fell apart a while ago, with Pizzloatto deciding to concentrate on making True Detective season 3 a winner, and Downey Jr committing to more feature films over the next few years.
Regardless, HBO remains keen to get this TV reboot off the ground, and That Hashtag Show are reporting that a new star is soon to be attached – Matthew Rhys, who recently completed a long run on FX’s spy thriller series, The Americans, for which he won an Emmy Award.
The character of Perry Mason, an iconic investigator and defense attorney, has proved popular over various mediums since the 1930s, when he was created by detective fiction author Erle Stanley Gardner. Since then, he’s appeared in over 80 books and stories, led nearly 26 films and had his own comic strip. Now, it looks like Mason will finally be back on the small screen in 2019, which will also be a big year for the man potentially playing him – Rhys has several feature films in the bank, including Andy Serkis’ Mowgli, You Are My Friend with Tom Hanks, and The Torture Report, the highly anticipated new flick from Bourne Ultimatum and Side Effects writer Scott Z. Burns.
The Perry Mason reboot series is currently in the hands of Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones, who both worked on Friday Night Lights and Weeds.
More information should be forthcoming.