Chris Rock joining Fargo

FX IS DIVERSIFYING its offerings, picking up a drama about a cutting-edge tech company starring Nick Offerman, sinking resources into a limited series based in feudal Japan and returning for a fourth series of Fargo, this time with Chris Rock.

The network revealed some of its upcoming plans Friday and they include the eight-episode Devs by writer and director Alex Garland, who wrote and directed the 2014 feature film Ex Machina starring Alicia Vikander. The upcoming TV series is set at a secretive tech firm in San Francisco that may be responsible for a murder.

Devs will star Parks and Recreation veteran Offerman as the firm’s CEO, Sonoya Mizuno, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny and Alison Pill. It will premiere on FX in 2019.

FX is also rebooting Shogun as a 10-episode limited series, which it calls its “largest international scale production to date.” The series will be based on the novel of the same name by James Clavell that was turned into a 1980 miniseries event by NBC starring Richard Chamberlain.

The plot charts the collision in Japan of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai. The new version will be written by Eugene Kelly (Westworld, Leftovers and Boardwalk Empire) and Ronan Bennett (Public Enemies, Top Boy).

FX has lured Rock to star in a new season of Fargo, set in 1950, which will begin production in 2019. Rock will play the head of a criminal syndicate who has struck an uneasy peace with a rival group — they’ve swapped sons. A death forces the unraveling of their plans. Longtime Fargo show runner Noah Hawley will again lead the creative team.