THE CONVERSATION To Become AMC TV Series
Francis Ford Coppola directed four historic films in the 1970s, and three of them enjoy remarkable adoration and recognition: The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now. In between those first two, Coppola made an “overlooked” classic, the tantalizing, paranoid drama The Conversation. 
Now, more than 30 years after the film’s release, AMC is developing a TV series based on the movie. (click the poster for a large version)
Boy, Mad Men hits and AMC goes crazy for a series…
This isn’t the first attempt to make this happen. Producer Tony Krantz (24, Felicity), and screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Erik Jendresen (Krantz’s wild Otis, Band of Brothers) worked on a TV version of The Conversation for ABC, but it never came to fruition.
With AMC, the series will be set during the film’s period (early 1970s), and will follow the character Gene Hackman played in the movie, complex surveillance expert Harry Caul. The updates, according to Jendresen, will come in the way themes are presented, especially in light of recent American debates over privacy rights and wiretapping.
On a personal note, The Conversation was the first film I saw as a Film Design student in Boston in the late 1980s. First thought: I’m never gonna pass this class. Further thoughts: It’s a slyly artistic work, right down to the “did she really say that?” audio design that redefines the movie in its final sequence. Watch it again and consider its Coppola bookends (The Godfather movies) — The Conversation takes on quite an exciting context.
Final note: Before the ABC deal, according to Variety, Krantz even sold the idea to NBC in 1995 while he was an agent. Kyle MacLachlan was to star.
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