Legendary '70s Movie Set for TV Remake

The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic, will be remade as a TV series, with filmmaker J.C. Chandor secured for both the writing and directing duties of the project.

Chandor will direct the remake via his CounterNarrative Films banner alongside Temple Hill, producer Adam Fishbach, and executive produced by Coppola's American Zoetrope. Erin Levy, known for her work on Mad Men and Mindhunter, will be the showrunner, according to IndieWire. TV remake rights for the Coppola series were optioned directly from the Coppola estate by studio MRC.

An unofficial source close to the project told IndieWire that despite a rumor that Aubrey Plaza may star in the project, no cast has been attached as of yet. Other media reports suggested it would be a limited series and that it was set up at a network, but in reality, it is intended as an ongoing series, and MRC will take the project to market.

As per the outlet, the reboot of The Conversation will be gender-flipped from Gene Hackman's role in the original movie. The official logline for the series is as follows: "Based on Francis Ford Coppola's seminal 1974 film, The Conversation follows luddite Harry Caul, a surveillance specialist obsessed with privacy, as she becomes entangled in a corporate espionage mystery that is bigger than she ever imagined. As she gets deeper, the surveillant becomes the surveilled, and she'll have to step outside of her reclusive life and make the personal connections she's been avoiding to find answers, and save herself."

One of Coppola's landmark films, The Conversation, stars Hackman in a suspenseful thriller about a "bugger," a surveillance specialist who has some concern that his work will be used to murder a couple he is spying on. 

There is a cast of stars that includes John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Teri Garr, and even Harrison Ford, who appears in a small role in the film. The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound Design, and it received the Palme d'Or at Cannes.