Norman Lear developing a TV series based on Father Gregory Boyle and his gang intervention program Homeboy Industries

Variety

The TV icon and his producing partner Brent Miller have optioned the rights to Boyle’s bestselling book Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. Boyle, who was once profiled on 60 Minutes, is a famous figure in Los Angeles for his work with gang members. Homeboy Industries, which started in the early 1990s, helps ex-gang members learn to live a normal life by removing their gang tattoos and training and finding them employment. The potential series is being eyed as a workplace half-hour dramedy. “Father Boyle has created an institution, a movement and ultimately a community of people, who in most cases — due to childhood trauma fell into a world that robbed them of their independence and understanding of their potential to exist and flourish without consequence,” Lear and Miller said in a joint statement. “He brought people together that were formerly divided. He entered into radical kinship with them regardless of their background – culturally, politically, or otherwise. And he made them laugh. It feels like the perfect formula for a new series as we say goodbye to 2020.”