Project Red Light

David Simon and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE DEUCE takes you inside the evolving sex trade of the 1970s. PRETTY WOMAN it ain’t.

- Ash Carter

Today, Times Square is the number-two tourist destination on earth, as aggressively cheerful as Disney World. But in the 1970s, it was a scuzzy, seedy wonderland of lowlife pushers, peep shows, and, most of all, prostitutes and pimps. It’s no wonder, then, that David Simon, the mastermind behind The Wire, set his new HBO show, The Deuce, there. Cocreated by George Pelecanos, it tells the story of Vincent and Frankie Martino, identical twins (each played by James Franco) inspired by real-life brothers, who open a mobbacked “massage parlor.” When a court finds that New York has no “community standards” to speak of, over turning decades of obscenity laws and unleashing the national id, the Martino brothers, along with Candy (played by executive producer Maggie Gyllenhaal), a hooker who finds her real talent behind the camera, set  off to achieve the American dream. It’s a wild ride, as gritty as Midnight Cowboy and as good as Simon’s best.

(Premieres September 10.)

David Simon: HBO gets a lot of porn-show pilots—about four a year. So George and I were really reluctant. But Marc Johnson, our assistant location manager on