Russell Crowe To Play Noted Douchebag Roger Ailes In New Showtime Miniseries
The rise of FOX News - and the incalculable damage it's done to this country's psyche - is something we'll be sifting through for many years to come, and we'll be doing it in all kinds of ways: internet long reads, TED talks, tell-all books, probably at least one Oliver Stone movie, and...television shows.
First up to bat: Showtime, who just greenlit an eight-episode miniseries about FOX News founder Roger Ailes, based on Gabriel Sherman's best-selling book The Loudest Voice in The Room. According to The Hollywood Reporter, none other than Russell Crowe has signed on to play Ailes. Are you not entertained?
It's admittedly somewhat difficult to imagine Crowe in-character as Ailes - waddling around the FOX News offices, screaming at his underlings and sexually harassing any woman unfortunate enough to wander into his field of vision - but an actor of Crowe's caliber should have no trouble pulling it off. Sure, extensive jowl-based prosthetics will probably be necessary in order to sell the illusion, but with Blumhouse producing, we suspect they'll have no trouble finding the right practical-effects master for the job.
Says Showtime CEO David Nevins:
"In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today. We've seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era."
This is gonna be fascinating, and we're very interested to learn more. Stay tuned for further updates as they roll in, and feel free to spend the interim fan-casting the rest of the FOX News family in the comments below. Who you got for Sean Hannity? Bill O'Reilly? Tucker Carlson? Give us your best guesses, gang.
