Lena Dunham Returns to HBO to Direct International High-Finance Series ‘Industry’
Lena Dunham is returning to HBO for a brand-new series. Variety reports that the “Girls” and “Camping” creator is heading back to the cable outfit to direct and executive produce “Industry,” an eight-part series that will center around “a group of twenty-somethings breaking into the world of international finance.”
Created by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, who previously worked in the international finance arena themselves, the show will follow “a group of young graduates competing for a limited set of permanent positions at a top investment bank in London. The boundaries between colleague, friend, lover, and enemy soon blur as they immerse themselves in a company culture defined by sex, drugs, and ego as well as deals and dividends.”
Dunham will direct the pilot episode of “Industry” and will executive produce the entire series alongside Kay and Down. Variety reports that there “are currently no plans for her to appear in the series.”
Most recently, filmmaker and creator created, wrote, and produced the single-season series “Camping” for HBO. Prior to that, she created the six-season series “Girls” for the cable outfit, which she also starred in and often directed and wrote. “Industry” will mark the first new television project for Dunham after her 2018 split with longtime producing partner Jenni Konner, who also worked on “Camping” and “Girls” with Dunham.
In October of last year, Dunham signed on to adapt Melissa Fleming’s “A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival” for a project being co-produced by Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. That project is still reportedly in the treatment stage.
On the acting side, she will next be seen in a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which opens next month.
Production on “Industry” has already kicked off in Cardiff, Wales, and the show has not yet set a premiere date.
HBO’s packed current and upcoming slate includes a number of high-powered original series, including “Ballers,” “Barry,” “Big Little Lies,” “Catherine the Great,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Contraband,” “Divorce,” “Euphoria,” “Gentleman Jack,” “Los Espookys,” “Lovecraft Country,” “Mrs. Fletcher,” “My Brilliant Friend,” “The New Pope,” “Perry Mason,” and “Westworld.”
