Dustin Lance Black Developing Semi-Autobiographical TV Miniseries

Dustin Lance Black won an Oscar for Milk and more recently has become almost as famous for his work fighting for gay rights, particularly working for gay marriage in California. It’s also been noted in many places that he was born into a strict Mormon family, which isn’t always the easiest place to grow up gay.

Now THR reports that he’s working on an eight-hour semi-autobiographical scripted miniseries about the gay rights movement for the ABC TV network in the US. It will apparently be ‘based on and told from Black’s background and experiences as a gay-rights activist’. It currently appears that it will also take into account his Mormon background – a religion he fought against, while also acknowledging its good points. Unfortunately though there are no specifics about the story.

As well as Milk, Black also wrote the likes of Pedro and J. Edgar. He made his directorial debut with Virginia and worked on the TV series Big Love.

Black’s project isn’t the only gay-themed miniseries in development at ABC, as in March it was revealed that the network has teamed up with David France to put together a television version of his documentary, How To Survive A Plague. The doc chronicled the struggle against AIDS in the 1980s, and the emergence of militant groups to fight against it, such as militant activists like ACT-UP and TAG. The TV version will follow a group of young people, many of them HIV positive, in that world.