NEW YORK (Variety) - Showtime has committed to a third miniseries taken from Armistead Maupin's erotic ``Tales of the City'' novels, which will star Laura Linney, Parker Posey and Olympia Dukakis.
The pay cable network scheduled ``Armistead Maupin's More Tales of the City'' as a six-hour miniseries in May of 1998, which was a sequel to the PBS telecast that originated the Maupin adaptations.
The first miniseries made a splash on public broadcasting in the mid-1990s, partly for the quality of the writing and acting and partly for the occasional nudity, which caused a furor among PBS stations in some cities with strict community standards.
When PBS walked away from doing the sequel because of the outcry, Showtime came to the rescue.
Sources said ``Armistead Maupin's Further Tales of the City'' will cost about $7.5 million. Filming will take place in Montreal, with exteriors in San Francisco, where the novels are set.