LOS ANGELES, March 25 — Cary Fukunaga looks to extend his run of award-winning TV, switching to comedy with Maniac, which has Academy Award nominees Emma Stone and Jonah Hill on board, and Netflix evidently impressed with its potential.

A rapid rise to fame

Fukunaga became a notable name in TV thanks to the first season of True Detective in 2014.

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were on board as its leads, veteran actors exploring a new space as each episode saw Fukunaga and series creator Nic Pizzolatto juxtaposing up to three time periods across the crime drama’s 17-year span.

The Californian-born son of Japanese and Swedish Americans had previously proved his talent at working with unknown actors on Mexican-American immigration tale Sin Nombre, which quickly emerged as a film festival favourite.

Following that came a new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre, ably demonstrating his ability to work with star names, its cast boasting Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench and Jamie Bell among its ranks.

Netflix and Fukunaga are renewing a relationship that started with 2015’s very well received Beasts of No Nation, in which the director became multi-hyphenate, adapting the Uzodinma Iweala novel, producing, and becoming the film’s cinematographer.

From drama to comedy

Maniac, however, marks a genre change; those four previous credits came on dramas. This new prospect is positioned as less serious fare, a dark comedy whose lead is a mental hospital patient, pre-occupied by the fantasy world that exists inside his head.

But that sort of genre-crossing career transition is one that Maniac actors Jonah Hill and Emma Stone have experienced for themselves.

The pair acted opposite one other in 2007’s Superbad before Hill took roles in the Jump Street comedies, The Lego Movie, and accepting Oscar nominations for performances in Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street; Stone received an Oscar nod for that year’s Best Picture, Birdman.

Though production on the series is in its early stages  —  Paramount TV and partner Anonymous Content are still looking for the right writer  —  source material is in place: Maniac is based on a Swedish series of the same name.

Watch promos for that original, and it becomes apparent that Fukunaga’s skill with split-reality narratives and adaptations could well make him exceptionally well suited to Maniac. — AFP/Relaxnews