HBO has optioned the rights to the book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, written by Barton Gellman, Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist. Deadline.com reports that Paula Weinstein will executive produce the planned HBO miniseries, which revolves around Richard Bruce Cheney. Besides the book, the miniseries will also be based on the Frontline documentary The Dark Side.
The book explores Cheney’s rise to the vice presidency, his role as perhaps the most powerful man to become vice president, and how he influenced the Bush administration and its policies, specifically on the issues of war. The film examines the intelligence and reports leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the internal tension over control of intelligence, and Cheney’s push to expand executive power after 9/11. The dark side is a euphemism for Cheney’s approach to fighting the war on terror, which was by keeping his work secret and concealing information from the American public.
According to Deadline.com, producers state that the project will center on Cheney’s “single-minded pursuit of enhanced power for the Presidency [that] was unprecedented in the nation’s history.”
Rick Cleveland (Six Feet Under) will adapt Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency into the miniseries, which will be produced by Spring Creek Productions in association with WGBH/Frontline and Fair Catch Productions. Spring Creek Productions’ Paula Weinstein and Jeffrey Levine, Frontline’s David Fanning and Michael Kirk and Fair Catch Productions’ David Kennedy will serve as executive producers.
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