For all the journalistic hand-wringing caused by Jayson Blair's transgressions at The New York Times, a lot of people outside the profession found it absurdly funny. Showtime hopes so, anyway.

The pay-cable network is developing a movie based on Blair's tenure at the Times that will try to examine what caused the young reporter to fabricate numerous stories that appeared in the paper between October 2002 and April 2003.

The made-up stories led to Blair's firing in May. Executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned in the wake of the scandal.

The tentatively titled "Jayson Blair Project" will take a darkly comedic look at the saga, Showtime says. It will be based largely on articles about Blair and the Times that Seth Mnookin wrote for Newsweek.

Jon Maas, who wrote Showtime's "The Last Debate" and TBS' "America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story," is working on the script.

"Most films based on the world of journalism focus on how a reporter gets his story against amazing odds or even how they put their lives in peril," says Robert Greenblatt, Showtime's entertainment president. "This one is truly different. This film will explore what made Jayson Blair so self-destructive and how his actions single-handedly destroyed his journalism career."