‘Homeland’ season 4: Damian Lewis returns to Showtime, but for new project

Clearly, Damian Lewis and Showtime had a great experience with one another, and the actor may be landing a role now that will not lead to him having to constantly worry about his future job status.

Sources confirm that the former “Homeland” star, who received great acclaim for playing Nicholas Brody on the show for three seasons, has signed on to appear in the ambitious pilot “Billions” for the network. Lewis will play the part of Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, and extremely successful trust-fund king who thrives on getting the job done and is incredibly intelligent to boot. He will be starring in this pilot alongside the equally fantastic Paul Giamatti, who plays U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhodes. The world of high finance is always interesting and cutthroat, and there are many angles to intelligently explore here that have not been done already on the TV medium.

This pilot will be directed by Neil Burger, who has helmed such films as “The Illusionist” and “Limitless.” While there is no guarantee that Showtime will like the series and give it a green light, we are pretty confident in its chances at the moment. This is the most built-in star power arguably any of their pilots has ever had. While “Homeland” had Lewis with Claire Danes, we feel like Damian’s level of fame now plus Giamatti even tops that.

The most interesting thing to us is where the network could even put the show at the moment, given that they do not exactly have a whole lot of room through some of their current programming seasons. The only possible spot could be in the spring, where they could try to find a place alongside “Penny Dreadful.” Unless they start programming other nights, they could be set almost everywhere.

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