Paul Haggis has said that Crash began its life as a television concept and you can see how that could be – it’s full of facile, easy resolutions that mean nothing but carry the weight of sentiment and mawkishness. It’s the sort of shit that would fit right in between Touched by an Angel and Celebrity Fit Club; Crash only contains profundity for those who have previously found meaning in a box of Mallomars.
Now Crash, after having stolen the Oscar, is returning to the medium for which it was truly built. Starz will air a 13 episode Crash series, marking the network’s first ever drama series. Paul Haggis, Don Cheadle and Bob Yari (who had been up to his balls in a Crash-related lawsuit at one point), and dig who will be writing the pilot: the singing voice of Aladdin! Dude is named Caleb Kane, and he wrote a track for The Black Donnellys, Haggis’ latest failed TV show. I don’t know if that’s where he got the pilot gig. There can be a pilot script because Lionsgate, who is making the show, recently signed a deal with the WGA. This is a stark reminder that while the end of the strike is something we all hope for, it will also mean the resumption of crap being produced.
Crash was originally going to air on FX, but that network wanted to wait because it had renewed it’s three newest scripted shows, Dirt, The Riches and Damages. Lionsgate was all about inflicting this show on a very small segment of America, though, so they went immediately for Starz.
“We’ll use the style of storytelling from the movie,” says Kevin Beggs, president of programming and production for Lionsgate, “but there’ll be new characters and new stories to get into the subjects of race and class, and the bigotry that’s simmering under the skin of a city like Los Angeles.” Hey Biggs, I don’t know what LA you’re living in, but that shit ain’t simmering under the skin. In fact, the way that LA keeps groups isolated actually makes all of this less interesting. Set the show in New York, where races and classes are jammed together in places like subways – that’s where there’s some simmering.