AceShowbiz -

Cary Fukunaga and Eric Roth are partnering up for a TV adaptation of "The Alienist". The Emmy-winning director is set to serve behind the lens of the drama series based on the best-selling novel by Caleb Carr, with Roth as executive producer.

1994's novel "The Alienist", set in the tenements and mansions of Gilded Age New York City, tells the story of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler who, with the help of newspaper reporter John Moore and police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, uses the emerging discipline of psychology to track down one of New York City's first serial killers.

Academy Award nominee Hossein Amini, who penned the pilot, will write the series and executive produce the project, which hails from Paramount Television and Anonymous Content. Steve Golin and Rosalie Swedlin will also serve as executive producers.

" 'The Alienist' is a fascinating and distinctive, fast-paced psychological thriller that is wonderfully evocative of the unrivaled Gilded Age of New York City," Paramount Television president Amy Powell says in a statement. "Cary Fukunaga's unique vision and ability to render compelling, distinctive and superbly atmospheric direction is the perfect voice for this television series. We are thrilled to have not only Cary's expert direction, but also the creativity, imagination and storytelling abilities of the supremely talented Eric Roth and Hossein Amini."

The project marks Fukunaga's return to TV following first foray into television with HBO's "True Detective", which earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series in 2014. Roth, meanwhile, won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for 1994's "Forrest Gump" and also co-wrote several Oscar-nominated films like "The Insider" (1999) and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008).