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News Matthew Rhys to Play Perry Mason in HBO Limited Series

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https://tvline.com/2019/01/14/matthew-rhys-perry-mason-hbo-limited-series-cast

Fresh off his Emmy-winning six-season run on FX’s The Americans, Rhys has signed on to star as legendary fictional criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason in a prospective limited series at HBO. The project is being produced Robert Downey Jr., who was originally eyed to play Mason. (Downey Jr.’s Team Downey shingle has been trying to get a Perry Mason project off the ground for much of the past decade.)

Here’s the project’s logline:

1932, Los Angeles. While the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression, this city is booming! Oil! Olympic Games! Talking Pictures! Evangelical Fervor! And a child kidnapping gone very, very wrong! Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, this limited series follows the origins of American Fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason. When the case of the decade breaks down his door, Mason’s relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city and just maybe, a pathway to redemption for himself.
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Matthew Rhys. Perry Mason. 1932 Los Angeles. I'm so there.
 
It will be interesting to see Mason go back to the original 1930s setting of the books and early movies, which has been vastly overshadowed by the TV show in the popular consciousness.

Kor
 
My pick for a new Perry Mason would've been someone like Lawrence Fishburne, but I guess if it's going to be a period piece, that wouldn't really work.

As it happens, Matthew Rhys played the killer in the very last Columbo movie, Columbo Likes the Nightlife. So he has that prior connection to detective fiction, for what it's worth.
 
Interesting. I only watched a few episodes of Perry Mason as a kid but I never got into it, but I might check this out because Matthew Rhys is terrific in everything he does.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Is Hamilton Burger going to win at least ONE case? Or will he be as incompetent as he was in the original series? :lol:
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Since Mason will be a private detective in this series.... Maybe? I wonder how much courtroom action will happen.
And why do Perry Mason and NOT make him a lawyer? The show and the TV movies later are probably better known than the original novels.

It's an interesting approach. I hope it works out for them.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Is Hamilton Burger going to win at least ONE case? Or will he be as incompetent as he was in the original series? :lol:
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It's not that Hamilton Burger was incompetent, it's that Perry knew how to spin him around in circles. Oh, and somehow the guilty party would always confess right there in court.
That being said, it's what you get when your name is Ham Burger.

This looks like it could be great. I loved Rhys in "The Americans," and have been itching to see him in other series.
 
Amaris said:
Oh, and somehow the guilty party would always confess right there in court.
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And in the preliminary hearing, no less, at least in the show (don't know about the books). I think there were only one or two episodes of the show where the case actually got to a jury trial. One was the episode about the one case Perry "lost," which opened with his client's conviction and then had him prove the guy innocent after all.
 
I don't know if it's incredible luck or really savvy decision making, but Matthew Rhys chooses really great projects. Or maybe it's that whatever projects he chooses he makes great by being a part of them.
 
That description is weird. Why portray Perry Mason as a private detective instead of a defense attorney? I don't think he was ever portrayed that way in the novels. The war-veteran stuff sounds new too.
 
Christopher said:
That description is weird. Why portray Perry Mason as a private detective instead of a defense attorney? I don't think he was ever portrayed that way in the novels. The war-veteran stuff sounds new too.
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Now, now, @Christopher, aren’t you the man who so often reminds us - quite rightly - that adaptations are just that & that they don’t have to be beholden to the source material? :p

Look like this is basically Mason Begins and they’re going to show his evolution into an attorney. Slightly odd path they’ve chosen for him but ultimately it’s all going to come down to the execution.
 
Captaindemotion said:
Now, now, @Christopher, aren’t you the man who so often reminds us - quite rightly - that adaptations are just that & that they don’t have to be beholden to the source material? :p
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Yeah, but one expects at least some common ground. You can make a Sherlock Holmes series where he lives in present-day New York, but he's still a consulting detective. Okay, Perry Mason was essentially more a detective than an attorney for all intents and purposes, but still, it's his "courtroom theatrics" that he's best known for.


Look like this is basically Mason Begins and they’re going to show his evolution into an attorney.
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Honestly, I've gotten kind of tired of origin-story prequels.
 
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