Steven Soderbergh will direct Cinemax series with Clive Owen

Steven Soderbergh, hot off the success of his HBO movie, “Behind the Candelabra,” is returning to TV again, this time to direct all 10 episodes of a new Cinemax series called “The Knick.”

Starring Clive Owen, “The Knick” is set in the Knickbocker Hospital in New York City, circa 1900. It tells the story of the doctors, nurses and staff who did their best to advance medicine in a time where medical standards were far, far more primitive than they would be just three decades later. (Penicillin was not discovered until 1928.)

Soderbergh and Owen will serve as executive producers of the series, along with writers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler.

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Cinemax’s airing of an original series directed by Soderbergh is a further sign that the pay cable channel is branching out from its traditional programming slate of pulpier and racier material, with such current series as the softcore “Femme Fatales,” “Lingerie” and “Working Girls in Bed.” It has sometimes had the nickname “Skin-emax.”

This isn’t the first time Cinemax has taken a page from the playbook of its parent channel, HBO. Earlier this year, it debuted the crime drama “Banshee” executive produced by HBO favorite Alan Ball.

The series is expected to debut on Cinemax in 2014.

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