Darby Kane’s international bestseller “Pretty Little Wife” is coming to the small screen. Amazon Studios is developing an adaptation of the novel starring Gabrielle Union, who is also set to executive produce.
The drama will be written and executive produced by Meredith Lavender and Marcie Ulin, who are both known for their work on HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” along with Kristen SaBerre (“4400”). Barry Jossen and Tana Jamieson will produce the project for A+E Studios and Range Media Partners. Both A+E Studios and Amazon Studios will produce the project.
Based on the book of the same name, “Pretty Little Wife” blends the worlds of cat-and-mouse thrillers and sexy soaps. The series will center around two brilliant but different Black women: Lily, the titular pretty wife who is suspected of murdering her husband, and Ginny, the detective who’s on the case. “Upon entering each other’s lives, they begin to crack open each other’s façade to reveal what really lies beneath,” a description for the novel reads. The book has been praised by the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Refinery29 and Huffington Post.
Union is best known for starring in “Bring It On,” the 2000 cheerleader comedy. She also starred in “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Bad Boys II.” More recently, she appeared in “Truth Be Told,” “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” and provided the voice of Meridian Clade in “Strange World.”
She will executive produce the drama under her production company, I’ll Have Another. The company “focuses on storytelling that surround centering marginalized communities with their specific point of views in an authentic manner” and has developed shows with HBO Max, Freeform, Apple, Showtime, Starz and Netflix. On the feature side of things, the company has developed projects with Universal, MRC, Disney, Netflix and Amazon.
This announcement continues a long list of Amazon Originals that were adapted from best-selling books. Earlier this year, the streaming service released “Daisy Jones and the Six,” a Fleetwood Mac-inspired romantic drama based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Prior to that, the company released “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” an adaptation of Jenny Han’s work. Some of Amazon’s biggest shows have their origins in books, from “Jack Ryan” to “Good Omens.” Even its buzziest show of last year — “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” — used novels as its source material, further uniting the ties between the ecommerce hub and adaptations of bestselling novels.
