“Law & Order” is set to tackle true crime with a new anthology series that is currently in development at NBC.
The first installment of “Law & Order: True Crime,” from executive producer Dick Wolf, will dramatize the trial of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez for the 1989 murder of their parents.
Wolf, the creator of NBC’s “Chicago” and “Law & Order” franchises, including the recently announced live reality series “Law & Order: You the Jury,” will executive produce through Wolf Entertainment in association with Universal Television.
“We’ve been talking with Dick about how to create an event series coming out of the ‘Law & Order’ ripped-from-the-headlines brand. This case captured the public’s attention like nothing before it as it examined taboo issues such as patricide and matricide in gruesome detail, all against a backdrop of privilege and wealth,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke in a statement.
“We will recreate the cultural and societal surroundings of both the murders and trials when people were not only obsessed with the case but examining how and why these brothers committed these heinous crimes.”
“Bob, Jen and I have been focused the natural evolution of the ‘Law & Order’ brand for the last several years and are excited to extend the franchise with a scripted limited anthology series that focuses on a high-profile trial,” added Wolf. “There is no shortage of compelling real-life criminal cases, and the Menendez trial was more scintillating than most crime fiction.”
The project continues the recent wave of renewed interest in true crime stories. FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” and HBO’s “The Jinx” all found recent success in bringing high-profile criminal investigations to television.