We’re likely going to see HBO on a tear of new original pilots, given new management and some notable recent flops, and the first new drama orders are certainly promising. One new series ordered to pilot from Anchorman team Adam McKay and Will Ferrell sounds like Arrested Development as high drama, while another from Kathryn Bigelow will take us to Mogadishu, Minnesota.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has handed out official pilot orders to McKay’s Succession and Bigelow’s new series, the first pilot pickups under new president of programming Casey Bloys. In the former’s case, Big Short helmer McKay will direct, producing with Will Ferrell from a Jesse Armstrong script, the full Succession logline reading:

Succession follows the saga of a fictional, American global-media family that is not only rich and powerful but also powerfully dysfunctional. The drama will explore family loyalty, international business and the perils of power in the 21st century.

Meanwhile, Mogadishu, Minnesota serves as a family drama exploring what it means to be American among the Somalis of Minneapolis, an early logline promising to “draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” Bigelow will executive produce alongside Somali Canadian rapper-singer-songwriter-poet K'naan Warsame, who himself will write the script, executive produce and even direct the pilot.

Both are in their early stages, but are either Succession or Mogadishu, Minnesota poised to get HBO’s drama brand back on track?

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