Netflix is about to bring you some laughs from Idris Elba and a new true crime series to obsess over courtesy of the Duplass Brothers.
Elba is set to star in “Turn Up Charlie,” while Mark and Jay Duplass will be taking on the docuseries “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist,” the streaming service announced Wednesday at a showcase event in Rome.
In the comedy, created Elba and Gary Reich, Elba plays a struggling DJ and eternal bachelor, who’s given a final chance at success when he reluctantly becomes a manny to his famous best friend’s problem-child daughter.
The eight-part half-hour series hails from Brown Eyed Boy Productions and Green Door Pictures. Elba and Reich will executive produce along with Tristram Shapeero. Shapeero and Matt Lipsey will direct. Production begins this May in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Duplass Brothers will be exploring the truth behind the criminal case, known as the “pizza bomber heist,” with the four-part original documentary series “Evil Genius.”
In 2003 in Erie, Pennsylvania, a robbery gone wrong and a terrifying public murder capture the nation’s attention, and a bizarre collection of Midwestern hoarders, outcasts, and lawbreakers play cat-and-mouse with the FBI. Eventually, a middle-aged mastermind named Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong — once a town beauty, now a woman grappling with mental illness — is arrested. But 15 years later, Evil Genius proves there’s more to the conspiracy and murders than was ever thought.
Mark and Jay Duplass will executive produce, with Barbara Schroeder penning the script and directing. Trey Borzillieri will co-direct and executive produce, along with Josh Braun and Dan Braun.
“Evil Genius” drops globally on May 11 on Netflix.