Deadline Hollywood’s Nikke Finke reports that HBO has acquired the TV movie rights to Gabriel Sherman‘s upcoming book about Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and the birth of Fox News Channel. Even crazier: among the producers of the (potential) project are MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

So, if you are keeping track: HBO–sister network to CNN–has acquired the rights to a movie about Fox News, with two MSNBC hosts producing.

To be clear: Sherman’s book isn’t even finished yet, so this movie might never get made, but HBO does love to pick up book rights. Earlier this year it debuted “Game Change,” based on the book of the same name, and it acquired the rights to Bill Carter‘s The Late Shift back in the early 90′s, changing the TV movie game.

Writes Finke:

In this TV movie, a source tells me, ”HBO prefers to take on Fox News through Ailes. The idea is that it should make Fox News look like a Mafia, and you get into this through Ailes, sidestepping Murdoch, not approaching the story head on.”