Porn drama The Deuce gets HBO series starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal

The Wire creator David Simon is writing the series, about the rise of New York's sex industry in the Seventies and Eighties

James Franco will play sex industry mobsters Frankie and Vincent Martino in The Deuce (Getty)

Period porn drama The Deuce is officially en route to your living room after being picked up by HBO.

The US network has not confirmed how many episodes will be commissioned, nor a premiere date, but with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal confirmed to star it is likely to prove a hit with viewers.

David Simon’s new project follows the legalisation and rise of the porn industry in New York’s Times Square in the Seventies and Eighties.


 Maggie Gyllenhaal will play prostitute Candy in The Deuce
 (Getty Images)

Inspired in part by mobster twins Frankie and Vincent Martino, the show will explore how tumultuous but lucrative the sex business was, until HIV, cocaine-fuelled violence and the revived real estate market put an end to its dominance in the area. The Deuce is a a nickname for the era’s notorious 42nd street.

Franco will be ‘doing a Tom Hardy in Legend’ and playing both Martino brothers, while Gyllenhaal plays entrepreneurial prostitute Eileen ‘Candy’ Merrell and will also act as a producer.

Simon, best known as creator of The Wire, is writing The Deuce with George Pelicans and Richard Price, while Breaking Bad’s Michelle MacLaren has directed the pilot episode.