Tampa mafia show looks for a hit
By JAY CRIDLIN
Published April 13, 2005
Scott Deitche puts it this way: His planned television series won't be Miami Vice, and it won't be The Sopranos.
Roll the two shows into one, though, and you might have something.
"It's going to have a lot of the stuff in the organized crime scene that's specific to Tampa," said Deitche, whose book on Tampa's mob underworld, Cigar City Mafia, has become a local hit. "Like the Cuban influence. We want to get a lot of the cool Tampa locales in there."
Deitche and production company Tampa Digital Studios recently announced plans to develop a television series about organized crime in Tampa.
While not based specifically on Cigar City Mafia, the show -- if it's sold -- will rely heavily on Deitche's knowledge of mob legends like Santo Trafficante Jr.
"I could spit out a scenario, and Scott could say, "That actually happened," said director Michael McCourt, who's working on a pilot script. "We could take something that happened in the past, twist it a little bit and bring it to the forefront of today. Now you've got some compelling stories."
The company plans to have a pilot treatment within two months, at which point they'll start pitching it to a network. If the pilot's a hit, the drama could roll into production this fall.
The plot and characters are in the works, but Deitche said the show may include historical flashbacks, and he and McCourt have discussed centering the show around a Tampa-born Cuban. "That would really showcase a lot of the uniqueness of Tampa," Deitche said.
Tampa Digital Studios, which is pushing to build a $5 million production studio at the site occupied by Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in South Tampa, hopes to set and shoot the series in Tampa.
Such a plan wouldn't be unheard of. HBO's The Wire shoots on location in Baltimore. The CSI series shoots scenes from its three shows in their respective cities -- Las Vegas, Miami and New York.
"The goal here is to do just what Miami Vice did for Miami," said George Cornelius, president of Tampa Digital Studios.
Even today, South Beach is all over the TV landscape, with CSI: Miami, Nip/Tuck and Eve among the current shows set in Miami. Tampa Digital's as-yet-untitled mafia show, Cornelius said, would give the Big Guava a similar cache.
"We can tell stories about Tampa that need to be shot here in Tampa with Tampa people," Cornelius said. "We want people to come to Tampa to go to Alessi Bakery, the Columbia Restaurant, the Pier in St. Petersburg, the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, because they saw that on television."
-- Jay Cridlin cridlin@tampabay.com