EXCLUSIVE: Emmy winner Tom Fontana is set to write and Oscar and Emmy winner Oliver Stone is set to direct the pilot of Dolce Vita, a period drama series set in 1950s Rome, for Entertainment One and Italian-based Mediaset Group and Martha De Laurentiis’ De Laurentiis Company.

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Created and written by Fornata, Dolce Vita is inspired by Stephen Gundle’s 2011 novel Death and Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s, for which eOne acquired the television rights. The true crime novel investigates the murder scandal that rocked Italy and portrays the Rome of romance, luxury, and glamour–as well as a city of carnal crimes, sex, drugs, corruption, and cover-ups.

The series is not related to Federico Fellini’s acclaimed 1960s feature La Dolce Vita, which explored the same decade in Rome from a very different perspective.

Stone is set to helm the pilot in his narrative TV series directing debut. Writing alongside Fontana are Italian scribes Giancarlo De Cataldo, Mimmo Rafele and Nicola Ravera Rafele.

Fontana and Stone executive produce the English-language series alongside De Laurentiis as well as Marco Belardi (Lotus Production) and Lello Monteverde (Leader Production). Barry Levinson is producer via The Levinson/Fontana Company. Dolce Vita is a co-production among eOne, Mediaset Group, and De Laurentiis Company. eOne serves as the studio and controls worldwide rights. The series, which will film in Italy and will air on Mediaset in the country, is expected to be taken to the U.S. marketplace shortly.

Fontana is best known for his writing on Homicide: Life on the Streets and St. Elsewhere and creating TV series series Oz for HBO and another international co-production that examined a slice of Italian history, Borgia. Fontana is repped by UTA.

Three-time Oscar winner Stone most recently directed and co-wrote the 2016 feature Snowden. On TV, he did the docuseries, The Putin Interviews and The Untold History of the United States. He had previously been attached to high-profile drama series project Guantanamo, which was set up at Showtime but became engulfed in the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Stone is repped by CAA.

Martha de Laurentiis (Hannibal) is repped by WME.