A few years back, HBO was hard at work with Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer to bring to life a scripted adaptation of the hit documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Like the film, the series would chronicle the heyday of the Miami drug trade during the ’70s and ’80s, with the potential of Bay directing the pilot episode. However, the show stagnated while searching for a writer and showrunner, and HBO went through a massive brand restructuring that lead to the creation of Game of Thrones and Girls, thus forcing out anything that wasn’t genre and/or niche. However, after years of sitting in the shadows, it seems the drug-fueled project has resurfaced at TNT.

According to an announcement made by the cable network, an “Untitled Cocaine Project” has been ordered to pilot with Bay, Bruckheimer and two producers of the Cocaine Cowboys documentary attached to oversee the series. Masters of Sex creator Michelle Ashford will write the pilot script which, at the moment, has no director attached (though Bay hopping into that seat is a possibility given his second unit work on TNT’s other Bay Films hits, The Last Ship).

Cocaine Cowboys is an amazing documentary that chronicles a fascinating time in U.S. history when the drug trade ran wild and, no matter how hard the government tried, nothing could stop the major players from making big money off the demands of consumers. Since the actual rights to the documentary and characters reverted back to the production company after the HBO project fell through, odds are good that some key facts (as well as the title) will be changed, but other than that, it’s great to see this project get some new life breathed into it at TNT.

Do you want to check out a new drug trade series from TNT? Let us know in the comments below.

[HT: TV by the Numbers]