Bernthal stars in upcoming American Gigolo series

THE new series American Gigolo is a small-screen adaption of the eponymous 1980 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fame, who will executive produce on this latest project.

Jon Bernthal, the star of The Punisher and The Walking Dead will play the lead role in the new series developed by Showtime, which has just received a green light for a pilot.

Having risen to fame in the postapocalyptic horror series The Walking Dead, the man who played the character of Shane went on to feature in a variety of television and film roles, most recently as the lead in the series The

Punisher.

N o w

Bernthal has just landed a further lead role in a series in development at Showtime.

Christened

American

Gigolo, the series is an adaptation of the 1980 movie of the same name with

Richard Gere and

Lauren Hutton.

Forty years later, the talented Jerry

Bruckheimer who produced the original film will executive produce on the new project. David Hollander, who also worked on the development of the series, will direct the pilot episode.

Bernthal will play the role of Julian Kaye, who has recently been released from prison. While trying to find work in the sex industry in Los Angeles, Kaye also investigates the frame-up that led him to spend 18 years behind bars for murder. An absence that took him away from his true love, Michelle, with whom he is also trying to reconnect.

Production of the future series remains conditional on the network’s approval of the

pilot.

Currently in high demand, Bernthal will star in Platform, another series in development for American television channel FX.

He will also feature in the cast for the Soprano prequel Newark, which is due to release in film theatres on Sept 25, and is currently shooting Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard alongside Will Smith and Liev Schreiber. – AFPRelaxnews