David Cronenberg will bring his directing talents to TV with Knifeman

David Cronenberg — the man behind such works as The Fly, A History of Violence, and my nightmares — is the next big-name director to try his hand at TV. Much like Martin Scorsese did for Boardwalk Empire, Cronenberg has agreed to direct the pilot and serve as executive producer for the slightly insane sounding Knifeman, based on the book by Wendy Moore. Yay, television is respectable now! (No, not you, E! You will never be respectable. I'm sorry.)

If you've missed Cronenberg's trademark body horror in somewhat more restrained films like A Dangerous Method, you're in luck. The true story follows self-trained surgeon (!) John Hunter, who pioneered new medical practices in the eighteenth century. Since this was a time when the answer to most problems was "let's just bleed you for a while and see if that helps at all; hopefully it won't just kill you," it's pretty much a guarantee that Cronenberg will get to indulge his interest in the terrible, terrible ways the human body can be mutilated.

Knifeman won't have a network until the pilot's done and the producers can shop it around — I'm going to assume it probably won't end up on the CW — but with Cronenberg on board, as well as a writing team made-up of Friday Night Lights veterans, I don't think the show will have much difficulty finding a home.