HBO is set to begin production in Baltimore on the six-hour miniseries THE CORNER, it was announced today by Chris Albrecht, president, HBO Original Programming. Charles S. Dutton ("Roc") will direct the drama, which is based on the critically acclaimed nonfiction book "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood," by David Simon ("Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets") and Edward Burns. THE CORNER follows the lives of residents of West Baltimore's Fayette Street, focusing on the lives of a mother, father and son as they struggle to survive the drug culture.

" 'Roc' Dutton is no stranger to HBO, having directed the original movie 'First Time Felon' and executive produced 'Laurel Avenue,' and as well as receiving an Emmy(r) nomination for acting on 'Oz'," said Albrecht. "We are confident that he will capture the powerful stories in the book by David Simon and Edward Burns and show the devastating impact that drugs have had on families and communities today."

"New generations are still being born into the drug culture, which continues to flourish," said Dutton, himself a Baltimore native. "I was incredibly moved by the humanity of the scripts and felt these stories could help remind people of a neglected element of society."

THE CORNER focuses on Gary McCullough, Fran Boyd and their 15-year-old son DeAndre McCullough, all of whom live amid an open-air drug market that has all but destroyed a row house neighborhood west of Baltimore's downtown. The miniseries begins as Gary has lost his place in the middle class, slipping deeper into life on the corner, desperately fighting heroin addiction and struggling for survival. Also entrenched in the world of the corner is his ex-wife Fran, a tough, clever woman who struggles daily with her own addictions as she tries to be a mother to DeAndre, who is now fighting his own battle against the lure of the drug corners that define his world.

Authors David Simon, a Baltimore-based journalist, and Edward Burns, a former police officer, spent more than a year at the corner of Fayette and Monroe Streets in West Baltimore, using what they call a "stand-round-and-watch" method of journalism to observe and follow the people who frequented the intersection. Eventually gaining the trust of many of these people, they were able to portray each character with intimate detail and realism. Actual names, place, events and dialogue are used to tell the story of a year in the life along Fayette Street.

People called "The Corner" "a disturbing story," adding, "Stick with it, and the reward is a deepened understanding of America's complex, intractable drug culture and, indeed, of human nature."

The New York Times hailed the book as "brave, unblinkered and heartbreaking," noting that "addiction's toll on the neighborhood is often startlingly concrete," and observing that it "explodes stereotypes of the ghetto poor and dispels some of the myths that even many of its residents hold dear."

Dutton, who starred in and was producer of the hit sitcom "Roc" (which was produced by HBO Independent Productions), was recently nominated for an Emmy Award(r) for his guest appearance last year on the hit HBO series "Oz." His other HBO credits include directing the original movie "First Time Felon" and executive producing the miniseries "Laurel Avenue." He appeared with Alfre Woodard in the 1995 critically acclaimed TV movie "The Piano Lesson," which brought him Golden Globe, NAACP Image Award and Emmy(r) nominations. In 1998, he starred in "Blind Faith," for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and a SAG Award. Dutton's other credits includes roles in "Homicide: Life on the Street" and the feature films "Cookie's Fortune," "A Time to Kill," "Alien 3" and "Get on the Bus," among others. Dutton will be seen with Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas in Sydney Pollack's upcoming feature "Random Hearts."

The executive producers of THE CORNER are Robert Colesberry ("The Devil's Own," "Mississippi Burning," "Billy Bathgate"), David Mills ("ER," "NYPD Blue") and the book's co-author, David Simon ("Homicide: Life on the Streets"), who also wrote "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets," which inspired the TV series.