Small Screen: ‘Pride’ & ‘The Stand’ Headline A Slate Of Novels Adapted For Television
Michael Ealy - Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Broadcast: The CW is set to develop Slay, a paranormal drama series from Academy Award-winning actress Regina King and her sister, Reina King, through their production company, Royal Ties. The upcoming series follows the story of Carson Jones, a teen from Virginia’s Historic Triangle who uses the supernatural abilities descended to her through her ancient African ancestral roots in order to combat the forces of evil. Written by Julian Johnson, with supervision from Pam Veasey, Slay is to be co-executive produced by Johnson, Veasey and the Kings, with production handled via CBS Television Studios.
ABC will be developing American Heritage, a new drama series from Matt Lopez centered on two Latinx immigrant families who settle in Sonoma Valley, California in pursuit of the American Dream. Lopez will serve as co-executive producer along with Lit Entertainment Group’s Adam Kolbrenner.
ABC has cast Michael Ealy for the pilot of their upcoming multi-generational medical drama Triage. Written by David Cornue and Erica Messer, the series spans over three decades of Dr. Finley Briar’s (Parisa Fitz-Henley) career as a surgeon; Ealy will play a gifted neurosurgeon and especially close friend to Dr. Briar. The pilot for Triage will be produced by 20th Television alongside executive producers Steven Marrs, Courtney Hazlett, Caitlin Foito and Director Jon M. Chu.
Jung So-min and Kim Ji-suk - JTBC
Cable: Showtime has put in a 10-episode, straight-to-series order on Kevin Iso and Dan Perlman’s Flatbush Misdemeanors, a half-hour comedy about two friends trying to branch out after moving to Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. Gary Levine, Showtime’s Co-President of Entertainment, called the upcoming comedy “a funny, audacious and inventive series that rips the artisanal sheen off of Brooklyn and mines comedy from the diverse, un-gentrified characters who live there.” Flatbush Misdemeanors will be co-produced by Showtime and Avalon, with the latter acting as lead studio.
Jung So-min and Kim Ji-suk are set to star in Monthly House, an upcoming drama centered around the topic of housing, from JTBC. The two star opposite each other, with Jung So-min as an editor for Monthly House magazine, and Kim Ji-Suk as the magazine's CEO. In this upcoming romance, the two clash once the editor’s CEO becomes her new landlord as they challenge each others views on homeownership, with the editor having never been able to afford the luxury of owning her home, and the CEO seeing housing as a slight investment. Written by Myung Soo-hyun with direction from Lee Chang-min, Monthly House will air sometime during the first half of 2021.
HBO will be developing a series adaptation of Ibi Zoboi’s 2019 novel Pride, a modern take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that is set in Brooklyn with an Afro-Latina protagonist. When a wealthy family moves into Brooklyn’s continually gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood across the street from the home of 18-year-old Zuri Benitez, Benitez’s initial distaste for her arrogant new neighbor, Darius Darcy, begins to slowly subside as they come to know each other. A co-production between Alloy Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television, Pride comes from Aziza Barnes, who will also write the series, and Natasha Rothwell, with an executive producing slate made up of Barnes, Rothwell and Alloy’s Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo.
Streaming: Maya Erskine, George Takei, Masi Oka, Randall Park, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Song and Darren Barnet headline the voice acting cast for Netflix’s new adult animated series Blue Eye Samurai. Set during Japan’s Edo period, the upcoming anime follows the quest for revenge undertaken by a mixed-race sword master in disguise. In a statement, Michael Green and Amber Noizumi, the series’ creators, showrunners, writers and executive producers, called Blue Eye Samurai “a larger-than-life action-adventure” that embodies themes that “are of the moment” with an “inspiration” that is “deeply personal.” They went on to thank Netflix for its “passion for this story and for their bold vision for sophisticated animated drama.” Erwin Stoff will executively produce alongside Green and Noizumi, with Jane Wu acting as producer and supervising director for the series.
HBO Max is developing a new post-civil rights era period drama focused on the origins of Essence, the groundbreaking lifestyle magazine tailored for Black women that began publishing in 1970. Executively produced by Essence’s co-founder Edward Lewis, the upcoming series frames the iconic publication’s founding around the story of Lewis, Clarence O. Smith, Cecil Hollingsworth and Jonathan Blount, who established Essence Communications Inc. in 1968, and on the women whose creative drive led to the creation of Essence two years later. Kronicle Media’s Korin Williams and Monique Nash, as well as 5 More Minutes Productions’ John Sacci and Matt Groesch will also executively produce alongside Lewis, with writing from Shukree Tilghman and Jessica Rambo.
ViacomCBS has released the official trailer for its upcoming Whoopi Goldberg-led limited series The Stand, a television adaptation of Stephen King’s 1978 novel of the same name. Focusing on plague survivors, the series centers on the struggle between good and bad, with survivors split between following 108-year-old Mother Abagail (Goldberg) and “the Dark Man,” Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård). In addition to Goldberg and Skarsgård, the series also stars James Marsden, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Amber Heard, Owen Teague, Henry Zaga, Brad William Henke, Irene Bedard, Nat Wolff, Eion Bailey, Heather Graham, Katherine McNamara, Fiona Dourif, Natalie Martinez, Hamish Linklater, Daniel Sunjata and Greg Kinnear. Produced by CBS Television Studios and co-written by Josh Boone (who directs the premier and finale episodes) and showrunner Ben Cavell, the series features a team of executive producers that includes Boone, Cavell, Taylor Elmore, Will Weiske, Jimmy Miller, Roy Lee and Richard P. Rubinstein, with additional production by Jake Braver, Jill Killington, Owen King, Knate Lee and Stephen Welke. The Stand will premiere on CBS All Access on December 17, with new episodes of the nine-episode limited series airing every Thursday.
The main actresses for The Sex Lives of College Girls, Mindy Kaling’s upcoming comedy for HBO Max, have been cast. Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Reneé Rapp and Alyah Chanelle Scott lead the new series about four college roommates at a distinguished New England university. As Kimberly, Chalamet plays a former high school valedictorian from Arizona whose social skills need some work as she enters college. Kaur’s Bela is a confident and comical Jersey girl who speaks her mind, including her outspoken “sex-positive” attitude, despite having only had her first sexual experience two weeks prior to arriving at the university. Not too far from Bela, Rapp’s Leighton is a fourth-generation legacy student who hails from New York’s Upper East Side; where she would consider herself to be classy and reserved, others would describe her as a snob. Rounding out the series leads is Whitney, played by Scott, a rising soccer star from Los Angeles and the daughter of an influential Black senator. Co-produced via Kaling International and Warner Bros. Television, the 13-episode first season is co-written by Kaling and Justin Noble (who will also act as showrunner), and is executively produced by Kaling and Howard Klein.
