Paramount Buys Dark Comedy That 'True Blood's Alan Ball Will Direct

EXCLUSIVE: True Blood creator Alan Ball is in the center of a pitch deal that just went down at Paramount. Ball will direct and produce an untitled project that will be written by Elan Mastai. The project, which Ball will produce solo through his HBO-based Your Face Goes Here Entertainment shingle, is a dark comedy with a twist, insiders say. Ball hatched the idea and fleshed it out with Mastai. Paramount acquired it in a bidding situation. Ball created HBO’s True Blood and Six Feet Under and on the feature front, Ball made his directorial debut on Towelhead, also writing and producing the adaptation of the Alicia Erian novel. He won an Oscar for his feature scripting debut on American Beauty. Mastai wrote The F-Word, a project that made the Black List and is gearing up for a production start at Fox Searchlight with Alex Holdridge directing and Casey Affleck reportedly going to star. Mastai recently rewrite First Kiss for Warner Bros and is writing an untitled breakup comedy pitch for Paramount that he developed with This American Life host Ira Glass and producer Alissa Shipp. Ball was repped in the deal by UTA and Mastai by Gersh and Principato Young.