Aaron Sorkin Teases Details on His New HBO Pilot

After penning the awards-buzzed film The Social Network, writer-producer Aaron Sorkin is friending an old pal: television. The creator of The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Sports Night is heading to premium cable with a pilot for another behind-closed-doors series. Tentatively titled More As the Story Develops, "It'll be a new series for HBO that will take place behind the scenes — for a change — at a nightly cable news show, where they have made a decision to try to do the news well," Sorkin revealed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

"I'm loving the idea of coming back to television and taking the same combination of idealism and romanticism and realism that made government sexy on The West Wing and seeing if we can't do the same with the news and journalism, which are held in at least as much contempt," Sorkin told TV Guide Magazine.

The intent is to explore a less cynical view of the news media, he explained. "It'll be aspirational. It'll be wish fulfillment. But they're going to lose as much as they're going to win. In other words, it's not going to be a fantasy. They're going to be trying to do well in a context where it's very difficult to do well when there are commercial concerns and political concerns and corporate concerns."

Sorkin will be re-teaming with Hollywood über-producer Scott Rudin, who headed up The Social Network (as well as True Grit), and has consulted with several real-life cable news shows and their on-air personalities across the channel spectrum, including Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

And despite the homecoming to his TV stomping ground, the success of The Social Network also has Sorkin planning returns to both the big screen and the stage: "Oh, yeah, I'm not done with movies — and theater, too. I'll be doing a play."

Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!