Martin Scorsese and Dennis Lehane bringing Shutter Island prequel to HBO

TV just keeps getting better and better. I woke up this morning to read the news that Martin Scorsese, Dennis Lehane and Paramount are teaming up to bring a series based on the film Shutter Island to HBO. 

The series is tentatively titled Ashecliffe, the name of the mental institution creepily located on that isolated island location. Scorsese would serve as one of the exec producers as well as directing the pilot episode, thereby shaping the series which predates the action of the movie. So you can stop your fantasizing about seeing Leo and Mark Ruffalo on your flatscreen every week. Sigh. Instead the prequel's focus would be on the hospital's past and all the misdeeds perpetuated on the mentally ill patients by the founders and staff. The head of Paramount's TV division, Amy Powell, apparently came up with the idea and brought it to Scorsese and the producers of the film Shutter Island and they brought in author Dennis Lehane who enthusiastically agreed to pen the script!

The whole thing sounds good to me with WHEN? being the only question. Because supposedly Scorsese is first - and finally - going to make his long-awaited passion project, the adaptation of Shusako Endo's Silence. That's also a Paramount project with production slated to begin early in 2015 in Taiwan. We've been talking about Silence for such a long time; hard to believe it's really happening.