Jake Gyllenhaal To Headline ‘Lake Success’ Limited Series Based On Book In Works At HBO

HBO has put in development Lake Success, a limited series based on Gary Shteyngart’s book, with Jake Gyllenhaal set to star and executive produce. The project, which marks Gyllenhaal’s TV acting debut, hails from Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker’s Nine Stories and Endeavor Content.

Co-written by Stheyngart and Tom Spezialy (Watchmen), who also co-showrun, Lake Success centers on narcissistic, self-deluded and hilariously divorced from the real world, hedge fund manager Barry Cohen (Gyllenhaal) who flees his family, his past and the SEC on a cross-country bus ride in search of his college girlfriend and a last chance at romantic redemption. Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, his brilliant wife Seema struggles to raise their autistic son and begins a tragicomic love affair of her own.

Gyllenhaal and Marker executive produce via Nine Stories.

“Gary’s novel is a beautifully executed character study highlighting the depth of human contradiction and complication, set against the timely backdrop of America today. We are thrilled to partner with HBO, who has consistently been home to some of the most exciting and acclaimed premium content over the past two decades,” said Nine Stories’ Gyllenhaal and Marker.

Gyllenhaal, Oscar-nominated for his performance in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, recently starred in Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on Netflix. He’ll next be seen in Spiderman: Far From Home. At HBO, he joins his sister Maggie, who stars in the network’s period drama series The Deuce.

Spezialy created the CBS drama series Chaos and co-developed Starz’s Ash vs. Evil Dead. He currently serves as executive producer on HBO’s Watchmen.

Shteyngart is the bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and novels Super Sad True Love Story, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, which won the Stephen Crane Award for First-Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.

Lake Success was named one of the best books of 2018 on more than 30 lists.

Marker is a Peabody-Award winning film, television and theater producer, and president of Nine Stories. She is currently in production on Antonio Campos’ period drama The Devil All the Time starring Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan, Riley Keough and Rob Pattinson.

Gyllenhaal and Nine Stories are repped by WME and Bloom Hergott. Shteyngart is repped by CAA, Denise Shannon Literary Agency, and attorney Ryan Nord. Spezialy is with CAA, Manage-ment and Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Marker is repped by WME and Paul Hastings.