EXCLUSIVE: Michael Mann has been set by HBO Max to direct the pilot episode of Tokyo Vice, the drama series that stars Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe. Mann will potentially direct more episodes of the series in its freshman season, and he becomes executive producer alongside J.T. Rogers, John Lesher, Alan Poul, Emily Gerson Saines, Elgort, Destin Daniel Cretton and Watanabe.

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Move brings an A-list filmmaker to one of HBO Max’s first drama series, and was written by Rogers based on Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat. The drama captures Adelstein’s daily descent into the neon soaked underbelly of Tokyo, where nothing, and no one is truly what or who they seem. It is informed by his memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat In Japan.

Production on the series begins in February on location in Japan. Endeavor Content is serving as the studio as well as handling international sales.

Mann, who is in Japan casting and scouting, has put his indelible stamp on series that include Miami Vice, Crime Story, Robbery Homicide Division and Luck. The director, who exec produced the upcoming James Mangold-directed Ford V Ferrari starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon, will be back from Japan to take part in a MOMA event in Manhattan November 1 that will mark the 20th anniversary of The Insider, the drama that starred Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. Mann will participate in a Q&A after the screening for the sold out event. Mann is repped by CAA.