It’d be inaccurate to say that director Wong Kar-wai has never worked in television—his most recent big project, Blossoms Shanghai, was one of the biggest streaming shows in China when it debuted back in 2023. But Wong’s certainly never worked in American television, which is just part of what makes it wild to hear that he’s teaming up with recent Emmy winner Hiro Murai for a new pilot at FX.
This is per Deadline, which reports that Wong has provided the story for the currently untitled pilot, while Widow’s Bay and Atlanta‘s Murai will handle directing. (The actual script was written by Turning Red‘s Julia Cho and Interior Chinatown author, and eventual showrunner, Charles Yu.) The potential series has a star lined up, too: Havana Rose Liu, who first popped up on a lot of people’s radars with her performance in Bottoms, before showing up more recently in projects like Michael Showalter’s holiday comedy Oh. What. Fun. and this year’s upcoming The Debut.
Per Deadline, the series will focus on “a petty criminal who inherits a share in a mysterious and powerful corporation. She then vaults into a world of unimaginable wealth but also constant danger from a ruthless elite who sees her as the ultimate threat.” (Which feels pretty stock, as far as premises go—but, then, so did Widow’s Bay before Murai and Kate Dippold fleshed it out and injected it without about a dozen layers of comedic strangeness, so we’re happy to reserve judgment.) The pilot is set to film in Bangkok before 2026 is out. Although he recently scored his first Comedy Directing Emmy win while working for Apple, Murai has a long relationship with FX; he built up his reputation as a director on Atlanta, served as an executive producer on The Bear, and is currently working on a new series for the network titled The Marriage Plot.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.