Julia Roberts to star in ‘The Normal Heart’ on HBO

Barbra Streisand tried to get the movie version made for years without success, but the prolific Ryan Murphy will get the job done for HBO.

“The Normal Heart,” Larry Kramer’s fiery play about the AIDS crisis, will become an HBO movie starring Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo and Matt Bomer.

Murphy will direct Kramer’s adaptation of his Tony-winning play. The film will premiere next year, HBO said.

Oscar-winner Roberts will play Dr. Emma Brookner, a paraplegic physician, and Ruffalo plays Ned Weeks. Both characters call attention to the AIDS crisis. ”White Collar” star Bomer will portray Felix Turner, a reporter.

Kramer blamed Streisand for not getting the movie made, a charge she said was unfair. She said studios weren’t interested in the project. But in another sign of how the show-biz world has changed, the project has found a place on risk-taking television. Murphy’s TV credits include “Glee,” “The New Normal” and “American Horror Story.”

HBO also announced other projects Friday at the Television Critics Association meeting in Pasadena, Calif.  

“Family Tree,” a sitcom with Chris O’Dowd (“Bridesmaids”), will premiere this spring. O’Dowd plays a jobless 30-year-old who gains a sense of purpose when, according to HBO, ”he inherits a mysterious box of belongings from a great aunt he never met.” The show is created and written by Christopher Guest and Jim Piddock. The cast includes Guest, Piddock, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Michael McKean, Kevin Pollak and Fred Willard.

The miniseries “Parade’s End” will debut Feb. 26, 27 and 28. Playwright Tom Stoppard adapted the work by Ford Madox Ford. The stars are Benedict Cumberbatch of “Sherlock,” Rebecca Hall of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and Adelaide Clemens. The World War I drama focuses on an English aristocrat, his unhappy marriage to a two-timing wife and his passion for a courageous suffragette. The director is Susanna White, who guided HBO’s Emmy-winning “Generation Kill.”