Now, after his latest movie, The Groomsmen came and went (and after the first weekend of The Holiday in which he's got a small role), Ed's back into television, as his pal and mentor Steven Spielberg has picked him to co-write a new drama series for Fox.
Another male-bonding adventure? Not quite. The show's about the fashion world.
And the other writer is Burns' wife.
Ed and the missus, former supermodel Christie Turlington, will be writing a drama about what she knows best: a show revolving around five twenty-somethings in the fashion industry: model, makeup artist, photographer, designers... It's an ensemble structure that Ed has worked in before, and if the series goes to pilot, he'll direct.
Spielberg suposedly came up with idea after hanging around the runways at New York's Fashion Week. Then he turned to Ed, who's been a pal since he appeared as grunt in Saving Private Ryan.
The show is one of a couple that Spielberg is developing for Fox. The other is about time travel. Last week, he announced that DreamWorks TV will produce a six-hour miniseries based on Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman for TNT.
As far as we know, the fashion series is Ed's first collaboration with Christie, beyond their two kids. With his writing skills and experience her, well, uh, her experience in the business, they should be the perfect team. Now if Heidi and Seal would just write a song together...
(Fun Facts: Ed Burns' director of photography on his Sundance-winning feature, The Brothers McMullen, was a cameraman for the original tabloid TV series, A Current Affair. Eddie put the film together in an ACA editing room and got it to Sundance by handing a copy to Robert Redford after an interview, while he was working as a production assistant for Entertainment Tonight. The story of Brothers can be found in Tabloid Baby, Chapter 25, "Buttafuoco Sweats"-- and Tabloid Baby's author provides commentary on the DVD of the Burns-DeNiro movie, 15 Minutes!)