Amazon Developing ‘The Underground Railroad’ Drama
Amazon are developing Colson Whitehead’s National Book Award winning novel The Underground Railroad into a script-to-series, one-hour original limited drama, the streaming giant announced today.
The Underground Railroad chronicles young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumoured Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
The show is based on Colson Whitehead’s National Book Award winning novel, which sold over 825,000 copies in the United States across all formats. It was also An Oprah’s Book Club 2016 selection, #1 New York Times bestseller, and the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. Oscar winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) is set to write and direct the series, with Pastel (Moonlight) and Brad Pitt’s Plan B (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave) exec producing.
“Going back to The Intuitionist, Colson’s writing has always defied convention, and The Underground Railroad is no different,” commented Jenkins. “It’s a groundbreaking work that pays respect to our nation’s history while using the form to explore it in a thoughtful and original way. Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking and in Amazon we’ve found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision.”
“Colson Whitehead’s book is a sweeping, character driven, boundary destroying epic,” added Joe Lewis, Head of Comedy, Drama and VR, Amazon Studios. “Having Barry bring it to life for Amazon Studios is thrilling. We couldn’t be more excited to see what they create.”
Pastel was founded by Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski and Sara Murphy as a home for artists to create provocative, boundary-pushing work in film, television and beyond. In addition to developing in-house productions for Jenkins, Pastel focuses on supporting diverse projects and empowering filmmakers that further the mandate of integrity, urgency and specificity set forth by Moonlight.
No news on exactly when The Underground Railroad will land, but we’ll keep you updated as we know more.
