Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to star as Johnny Carson in a biopic series from Deadwood's David Milch

Deadline

Milch is teaming with Austin Powers, Meet the Parents and Game Change director Jay Roach on King of Late Night, which would star Gordon-Levitt as the iconic host of The Tonight Show, following him from New York to Los Angeles to the Las Vegas strip. "King Of Late Night will reveal how Johnny’s diehard connection to his audience overlapped with his lifelong desire for a basic quality of life, and how his beloved on-screen persona came into conflict with the more colorful aspects of his personal life," according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. Producers wiip and Anonymous Content will shop the series to streamers and cable networks. Milch, who has been working on King of Late Night for five years, will write the series with Roach directing. Gordon-Levitt, who currently stars on Showtime's Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, will serve as an executive producer in addition to starring. As Andreeva points out, "there have been multiple previous attempts to mount a Jonny Carson biopic, including a feature and an NBC miniseries, both based on Bill Zehme’s book Carson The Magnificent: An Intimate Portrait, which were announced about a decade ago but did not come to fruition. On TV, the late-night host was portrayed by Rich Little in 1996 HBO film The Late Shift. Additionally, the 2017 comedy-drama series There’s… Johnny!, created by Paul Reiser and David Steven Simon, takes place in the 1970s and depicts the fictional goings-on behind the scenes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."