Following months of speculation, I’ve learned that HBO has closed deals for a noir drama series project from Gone Girl director David Fincher and L.A. Confidential writer James Ellroy. Written by Ellroy, Shakedown, now in development, is set in the tabloid world and the underbelly of Los Angeles in the 1950s and centers on a real-life private detective. It is inspired by the life of legendary 1950s Hollywood vice cop-turned-private eye Fred Otash.

This is an original drama project by Ellroy and not an adaptation of his 2012 novella Shakedown, which also features a fictionalized version of Otash. The drama is based on a script Ellroy originally developed at FX with a different producing team. Fincher and Ellroy are executive producing the HBO project alongside Joshua Donen, Clark Peterson, and Steven Hoban.

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Fincher and Ellroy are reteaming after Fincher was attached to a miniseries adaptation of Ellroy’s novel The Black Dahlia years ago, before the book took a route to the big screen instead.

House Of Cards executive producer/director Fincher also is collaborating with a novelist on another HBO drama project, an adaptation of British series Utopia, now in development. It is being written by Gillian Flynn, on whose book Fincher’s Gone Girl was based.