Starz to feature stars in TV's Crash

Starz Entertainment announced Monday that the film Crash will be made into a 13-episode, one-hour series come August.

No, not 1996's Crash, the high drama starring James Spader as a car-crash victim who discovers an underground culture of individuals who have a fetish for car crashes. (Although, come to think of it, television series idea!)

The Crash we speak of here is the film that shocked millions when it beat out Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture at the Academy Awards back in 2005, the film that touted a superstar cast of actors and actresses (Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, Terrance Howard, Brendan Fraser, and the thespian otherwise known as Ludacris all starred), and the film that examined the Issue of Racism with an extremely heavy hand.

Although the television version won't have quite the same star power behind it, it's been rumored recently that Don Cheadle (named as one of the "People Behind the Movies We Love" in the Paste's 2008 Art House Powerhouse 100) may appear in a few episodes. He's already signed on as one of the producers of the series, and has allegedly been in talks to recruit some of the other stars of the film.

One can only hope that Dillon reprises his role as the horrifically misogynistic, racist, generally unlikeable cop, whose character (allegedly) redeems himself in the following scene:

While it remains to be seen whether any of Cheadle's co-stars will actually reprise their roles on the small screen, it has been announced that Paul Haggis and Bobby Meresco, the co-writers of the original film, have signed onboard for the series, as have most key members of the film's production team. There is also no word at this time whether the WGA strike will affect the shooting of the script.

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