Boardwalk Empire now filming with Scorsese directing

Another HBO drama pilot went into production this week. Boardwalk Empire is a creation of Terence Winter based on the non-fiction book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson. The pilot is notably being directed by Martin Scorsese, his first non-documentary television work since an episode of Amazing Stories back in 1986. Terence Winter was the second most prolific writer on The Sopranos after its creator David Chase. While based on real events, the show will obviously be heavily dramatized. Boardwalk Empire will track the rise of Atlantic City as a corrupt embodiment of the Prohibition period through the eyes of Nucky Johnson, a real life bootlegger. The pilot has an amazing cast of proven veterans and rising talent. Check them out below.

The cast:

• Steve Buscemi plays Nucky Johnson, who runs a liquor distribution ring in Atlantic City.
• Michael Pitt plays Jimmy Darmody, a ruthless flunky of Nucky’s and a World War I veteran.
• Kelly Macdonald plays Margaret, an enterprising Irish immigrant who married into the wrong family to escape her own. I haven’t seen any specification for which, if any, character her husband might be.
• Michael Shannon plays Van Alden, a senior Treasury Department agent assigned to controlling bootlegging during the Prohibition era.
• Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from The Wire!) plays Chalky White, the de facto ‘mayor’ of Chickenbone Beach, a black section of Atlantic City, which he rules with an iron fist. He’s an ex-boxer and confidant of Nucky’s.
• Stephen Graham plays Al Capone.
• Aleksa Palladino plays Darmody’s wife.
• Paul Sparks plays a funeral director whose real business is bootlegging.
• Paz de la Huerta plays Nucky’s girlfriend, a hot party girl.
• Dabney Coleman plays Commodore Kaestner, Nucky’s predecessor and mentor.
• Vincent Piazza plays a young Lucky Luciano.
• Anthony Laciura plays Louis Kessel, Nucky Johnson’s loyal assistant.
• Shea Whigham plays Eli Johnson, Nucky’s corrupt sheriff brother.

If Boardwalk Empire were to be picked up for series, and there’s virtually no chance it won’t be, early 2010 would be the earliest anyone could expect to see it. The other recent drama pilot, Treme, has already been picked up for series. That one is from the mind of David Simon (The Wire). More on that here and here.