10 Promising & Big-Name Directors Who Turned To The Small Screen

We've all been aching for the day that Michael Mann makes a triumphant return to television. The man helped to revolutionize the medium with Miami Vice, incorporating popular styles and music and directing the show with flare unseen before on a primetime network drama. Since, he directed the TV Movie L.A. Takedown, which he would later remake and expand into 1995's crime classic Heat.

And for a brief, fleeting moment, after faltering a bit at the box office with his big-screen Vice adaptation and receiving mixed reactions for Pubic Enemies, it appeared he was primed to settle in back home. And as good as much of Mann's cinematic work had been, it'd be nice to have a weekly dose of it, particularly in the form of Luck, a gritty gambling drama set in the world of horse racing and starring Dustin Hoffman. Better yet, Mann was combining his talent with that of Deadwood's David Milch.

Unfortunately, after two horses died on set, concerns about animal safety shut the show down before a second season could air.

Mann is still in the television game, however, currently developing an adaptation of Tokyo Vice, the true story of a journalist exposing the seedy underbelly of the corrupt police squad.