HBO’s creator of the hit True Blood, and gone-but-not-forgotten Six Feet Under, Alan Ball, has signed on to create yet another TV show for the pay cable network.
And once again, Ball is using television to feed his obsession with death. His new title is All Signs of Death, and it’s based on a Charlie Huston novel called The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. Huston’s novel is a crime noir thriller centering on a young man named Webster Goodhue, whose life gets complicated when he takes a job as a crime scene cleaner.
Ball himself will direct the pilot episode and oversee the series, while Huston himself is writing the pilot’s script. There’s been no cast announcements yet, but expect them soon, as production starts next month in L.A.
It should be no surprise that HBO wants to stay in the Alan Ball business. Six Feet Under got plenty of critical acclaim during its 5-season run, while True Blood, currently in its 3rd season, is the network’s highest-rated show. Like the Sookie Stackhouse novels that True Blood is based on, the main character in Huston’s Mystic Arts book is planned to recur in future books. Which should give Ball plenty of fodder for future seasons of his show.