Sure, you know Grigori Rasputin as a historical Russian cult-of-personality leader and infamous murder victim with a seriously grody beard and strange haircut, but did you know that he’s getting a miniseries from the network that brought us American Horror Story, Nip/Tuck, and Archer?
Ok, the one thing that I see as an indication that this series won’t be going the way of The Tudors and most historical dramas about the intricacies of royal families since is that Shekhar Kapur, the director of Elizabeth, is in charge. But then again, the production is also going to be on FX. From Deadline:
Prison Break creator Paul Scheuring will write the script based on the upcoming book Rasputin: Dark Forces And The Fall of The Romanovs by Douglas Smith. Per FX, the event series centers on “one of the most controversial characters in history who is held responsible for bringing down the Russian Empire and changing the course of the world as we know it” and answers the question, “who was he really beyond the folklore, a true healer or the greatest charlatan the world has known?”
Kapur has apparently long been fascinated by Rasputin, which does not leave him alone. I mean, I’ve seen Hellboy. And the Animaniacs. It’s hard to find a better story hook than an actual historical figure who was killed about seven different ways at the same time because his enemies feared he was invincible, and at the same time was hanging around with everybody who was historically important to the downfall of one of the last great autocratic European monarchies. According to Deadline, FX sat down with Kapur to talk about Rasputin and “quickly found creative common ground.”
Whether that creative common ground was Rasputin’s association with lots and lots of sex (a tricky detail to hold as historical given the sheer number of folks with reasons to slander him) remains to be seen, but I look forward to snickering in my future.
(top pic via Hark a Vagrant!, )
