Writer/director/producer Adam McKay can’t stop, won’t stop. With his apocalyptic satire “Don’t Look Up” crashing into the Oscars with a nod for Best Picture, and the financial family dramedy “Succession” on which he serves as an executive producer snapping up trophies at every awards show it enters, McKay is riding high. Plus, on Sunday, his newest series, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” premiered on HBO. Created by Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, McKay is an executive producer on the series and directed the pilot episode.
“Winning Time” is based on Jeff Pearlman’s book, “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,” focusing on the high-stakes wheeling and dealing in the late ‘70s to build the Lakers into a dominant NBA team. Newcomer Quincy Isaiah stars as a freshly drafted Magic Johnson, while John C. Reilly co-stars as the libertine new owner of the Lakers, Dr. Jerry Buss.
The snappy, sarcastic, self-aware tone and structure is classic McKay, and cinematographer Todd Banhazl brings an authentically grimy ‘70s grain to the look of the series, which is striving for something between fictionalized account, documentary recreation and oral storytelling.
