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Philly's Kevin Bacon to star in Showtime's Boston-set series 'City on a Hill'

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will produce the Boston-set drama, which is inspired by true events.

Kevin Bacon as Jackie Rhodes, Aldis Hodge as Decourcy Ward, Mark O’Brien as Jimmy Ryan and Jonathan Tucker as Frankie Ryan in “CIty on a Hill,” which Showtime has ordered as a series for 2019
Kevin Bacon as Jackie Rhodes, Aldis Hodge as Decourcy Ward, Mark O’Brien as Jimmy Ryan and Jonathan Tucker as Frankie Ryan in “CIty on a Hill,” which Showtime has ordered as a series for 2019Read moreEric Ogden/Showtime

Showtime has ordered a 12-episode season of City on a Hill, a Boston-set drama starring Philly's Kevin Bacon and Underground star Aldis Hodge, for 2019, the premium cable network announced Thursday.

Created by Chuck MacLean, it's based on an idea from Ben Affleck, who'll be producing with his Good Will Hunting partner Matt Damon, and is a fictional story inspired by real-life events.

Read more: Kevin Bacon's new pilot is a Boston story

Here's how Showtime is describing City on a Hill:

In the early 1990s, Boston was rife with violent criminals emboldened by local law enforcement agencies in which corruption and racism was the norm – and then it all changed in what was called the "Boston Miracle." In this fictional account, driving that change is assistant district attorney Decourcy Ward (Hodge), who comes from Brooklyn and forms an unlikely alliance with a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran, Jackie Rhodes (Bacon).
— Together, they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to involve, and ultimately subvert, the entire criminal justice system of Boston.

Since 2013, Bacon has starred in two TV series, Fox's The Following, where for three seasons he played a former FBI agent caught in a cat-and-mouse game with a Edgar Allan Poe-obsessed serial killer; and more recently  Amazon's I Love Dick, where he played the title character, a professor who becomes the object of a woman's obsession. Amazon canceled the show in January, after one season.

Syfy recently passed on a pilot for a reboot of Tremors starring Bacon.