Now here’s a brilliant piece of casting worth paying cable rates to see: Damien Lewis, aka Brody on Showtime’s Homeland, has been cast opposite Paul Giamatti, who was unforgettable in the HBO miniseries John Adams, in a pilot for a new series called Billions, about the world of high finance. Giamatti will play clever and aggressive U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhodes, and Lewis will go up against him as the audacious hedge fund king, Bobby “Axe” Axelrod. Sounds like this might be what Bonfire of the Vanities woulda, coulda, shoulda been.

Billions will be written and executive produced by New York Times columnist and co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Andrew Ross Sorkin, who also wrote “Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – and Themselves,” and co-produced the HBO Films’ adaptation of his book. Brian Koppelman and David Levien,  of Ocean’s Thirteen fame will also be writing and executive producing.

With a creds like that, this series promises to be The Next Big Thing on the small screen. But I’m predicting it will be at least 12 months before we see it, and I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, we’ll just have to get our ginger fix from Lewis as he plays Henry VIII in the upcoming PBS adaptation of  “Wolf Hall.”