There are no formal negotiations yet, but I hear that Vince Vaughn is looking very good to join the second season of Nic Pizzolatto’s drama True Detective. While Vaughn had been rumored for the HBO series for a while, I hear he only recently had been approached. Things are progressing quickly, and everyone is hopeful that a deal can be made. I hear Pizzolatto wrote the character with Vaughn in mind, his second time writing for the Wedding Crashers star. Last fall, Pizzolatto was wrapping True Detective 
— then envisioned as a limited series — when he was tapped by Universal and Vaughn and Victoria Vaughn’s studio-based Wild West Picture Show banner to write a script for a feature reboot of The Rockford Files with Vince Vaughn to star as the iconic private eye. Soon thereafter, True Detective launched, hitting the zeitgeist and spawning a franchise. Pizzolatto got busy with the show, and Rockford Files moved on with another writer, but Pizzolatto and Vaughn had developed a relationship, and I hear that led to the writer penning a role on the second season of HBO drama with the actor in mind.
As for what Vaughn’s character is about, HBO and Pizzolatto had been keeping mum on details about Season 2, which will be set in California. It is believed that, like Season 1, the second cycle also will kick off with a murder, and it might involve corruption in the California transportation system, possibly linked to a proposed high-speed train. The series is expected to have four leads, three of them said to be cops/detectives/government workers — two male, for which Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch have been in talks, and one female. The fourth, which Vaughn is eyed for, is said to be a villain, possibly with mob ties. While he is best known for his comedic turns, Vaughn has appeared in a number of feature dramas, including The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Psycho and The Cell.
Pizzolatto is still working on scripts, but the completed ones are great, HBO head of programming Michael Lombardo said at TCA last month. “The two scripts we have are, I hate to jinx it, but are more exciting than the first season,” he said. “Nic has blown us away with the first two episodes.”
This needs to be made to happen.
Nooooooooooo!!!!!
Nooooooo is right!!! He doesn’t have the drama chops needed for this. What a disappointment this just might be. Vince Vaughn is best sticking to what Vince Vaughn does…whatever that is.
Maybe you’ve never seen “Return To Paradise.” Vaughn is phenomenal in that. A real acting turn.
Aren’t people tired of this one-trick-pony? Talk fast, mumble a bit, and be snarky. Lather, rinse, repeat. /wrists
well… that’s three tricks. dammit.
He was fantastic in Clay Pigeons.
BINGO! If any of the anti Vaughn droners on this site watch the performance they would stifle.
The profession is called “acting”.
Clay pigeons wasn’t good for much except one young lady who went topless. Sorry but Vaughn is Swingers. He’s a joker, not an actor. And I don’t think someone can stifle. Maybe their anti Vaughness could be stifled by it, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go to make sense of your usage.
Well, it was a great show while it lasted.
Really?
Nice comment, Anonymous.
I’ve never seen evidence of any acting talent in Vince Vaughn. Unless the script calls for him to stand in a dimly lit room and look tall, I don’t see how this comedian could do anything but ruin this project.
because he was so good in The Cell and Psycho
The problem for me is that the second season just won’t have what the first did. The first was this surprise, a gift handed to us that we didn’t even know we wanted. We were so invested and so into it and had no expectations going in and it blew our minds. Now with the second season I’m not even excited. It’s become a big deal for an actor to “get” a part in this and their profile will be raised, etc, but I’m already bored. I wish they had gone with relative unknowns. The True Detective brand is there, it’s been created. I have no desire to see these actors in these roles. And now we’re going to spend the next few months seeing images from set and guessing what’s going on and feeling inevitably let down when the second season airs. I am just not feeling this. And this is coming from someone who was OBSESSED with the first season. But now it’s about always having giant actors and chasing Emmy’s. Even if the story is great, which I am sure it will be, and I’m sure it’ll be well done – I don’t doubt that – I just don’t feel anything for this anymore. I get that Matthew and Woody moved on and I like the anthology idea. But now it’s about agents “getting” parts for their people in this giant high profile show and it’s about the biggest actors they can lock down regardless of if they’re right for the roles. It doesn’t need to be this anymore. I would have found all of this more intriguing and exciting if HBO had gone with unknowns. Everyone would have watched it still. The brand is there
Your post is a roller coaster ride of emotions about the second season of a show that hasn’t started filming yet. Get a grip and make your judgments once it’s aired.
I absolutely love how people commenting on this are god-willed experts on what the show needs, as opposed to the creator himself. If you were OBSESSED with season one, wouldn’t it logically follow that you give the second season a chance before tearing it down? Of course, you come off as all emotion, and no logic, so I answered my own question.
If the CREATOR feels Vaughan has the chops and the look/style needed for the character, that’s all that matters. Get a grip. Or perhaps get outside and forget about brands for a day. It’s all just a show in the end.
Please don’t do this HBO! First the Leftovers is a huge disappointment and now this?! I thought you weren’t TV…
Much more looking forward to S2 of Fargo next year.
No,no,no! He just is not the right person for that material. He would have to totally transform his physical and emotional state for me to believe he was not going to crack a joke any second. It’s a hard act to follow. Who ever gets the job better bring their A game or they will never hear the end of it.
Val Kilmer S2 True Detective
Inexplicable. Why would they actually WANT Vaughn? He’s not much of an actor and doesn’t have much to offer in audience appeal.
This could be awesome, especially if he’s a political figure. Could be a Vinaissance. 2 years ago who would have pegged McConaughey to be so brilliant?
McConaughey was brilliant from the moment he uttered his first word in Dazed and Confused. He just spent most of his career picking awful material and getting paid.
Bring on the Vaughnissance!!
They spent too many months hyping their A-list potential cast, and so inevitably there is going to be some disappointment. Maybe it will be an okay show even so; just not an “event” like the first one.
Just the person that I DON’T want to see.
Reminds me of all the haters when it was announced that S2 of The Wire would be about the Docks with a new cast. That turned out just fine.
That’s what everyone said about Matthew McConaughey. I trust Nic
True Detective fans are such a sensitive bunch, aren’t we? The first series was mind-blowing but it would not have reached those levels without McConaughey’s virtuoso performance. Doubt it can be equalled so I’m not getting my hopes up for the second series.
It isn’t that Vaughn can’t do drama, it’s that the immersion of True Detective in that deep south northern Louisiana bayou was like entering a world no one had ever seen very much of on the large or small screen. Peeling away the layers of that culture, and place in our country, is what gave ground to the amazing characters whose interactions and perspective were so interesting because they were of that “foreign” land.
Now they want to make season two Chinatown? Set in California. Bad guy with mob ties? Corruption in the transportation department? We’ve seen this location, this story, a million times. We’ve seen every iteration of a mob story ever made. So they want to cast Vaughn against type and make a funny guy a thug? Big deal. At 6’3 to 6’5 Vaughn is a huge guy, he’s imposing enough to be believable so that is not all that controversial of a move.
But when True Detective starts to become too easy to digest and familiar is when they will have gone down the wrong creative path as they seem to be doing here for reasons that have nothing to do with Vince Vaughn.
Very well put. I would go a step further and say another big factor which gave True Detective so much gravitas, was the fact that it dealt with ritualistic murders tied a powerful occult society with tentacles in every sphere of Louisiana’s power structure. There have been stories of this kind of activity involving elite secret societies in America circling around the zeitgeist and even some major news outlets for years. The most notable of which, is a case called The Franklin Coverup, which involved a Catholic Church organization called Boys Town, and very high level politicians and power brokers in Omaha, Nebraska, and even Washington D.C. True Detective was the collective unconscious revealing the truth of the nefarious activities of these societies, and that is why I believe it struck such a chord with the American Public.
A story about a mobster, and a public transportation corruption scandal will not have nearly the same impact. I hope Pizzolatto finds a way to weave in the stories about dark societies in Hollywood into this storyline, otherwise it won’t resonate.
I like Vaughn and think he’s very talented actually, but even I was looking forward to a more surprising actor to be in the second season. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting with Denzel and Edward Norton/Daniel Craig or maybe Leo and Benicio Del Toro?
This is genius!
I cant wait