The Wire's David Simon Reveals 70's Time Square Porn Project Plans

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David Simon – the mastermind behind HBO’s The Wire and Treme, along with his frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, is prepping a television series about the porn industry.

Called The Deuce, the show will chronicle the legalization and subsequent rise of the porn industry in New York’s Times Square from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s. The show will focus on tumultuous mid-town Manhattan life up to and including the rise of HIV, the violence of the cocaine epidemic and the rejuvenated real estate market which brought the whole party to a close.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Simon said he and Pelecano’s were initially reluctant to take on the project when they first heard from one of their Treme location managers, who'd been researching the life of a man who had been one of the mob fronts on 42nd Street during that era.

"He said, 'you’ve got to hear the guy’s stories,’" Simon recalls. "George and I looked at each other and said, 'I don’t wanna make a porn show. … I’m married with kids and lawn furniture. I don’t want to go there, man. That’s dark.'”

Curiosity got the better of the pair and after agreeing to meet the subject began their now customary, detailed research process. Still there were considerable challenges to tackling the subject matter: “You don't want to make porn to critique porn because that would be a venal journey — nor do you want to look down on people because that also is fairly dishonest.

"You really have to land it in such a way where it’s a story about people and it’s a story about markets — about the moment where something became legal and profitable and what happens to people in that environment when markets prevail."

The Deuce hasn't been optioned by HBO but The Hollywood Reporter believes a pilot may be ordered soon.

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