FX is moving ahead with its adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred. The Disney-owned outlet has given a series order to Kindred,
FX is moving ahead with its adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred.
The Disney-owned outlet has given a series order to Kindred, which comes from FX Productions and writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen). It’s based on the influential 1979 novel by Hugo Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Butler, following a young Black woman in Los Angeles who finds herself pulled back and forth in time.
FX ordered a pilot for Kindred in March 2021. Janicza Bravo (Zola) directed the pilot episode. The series stars newcomer Mallori Johnson, Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and David Alexander Kaplan.
“Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has done a phenomenal job of adapting Kindred for FX and honoring the legacy and timeless value of Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking novel,” said Nick Grad, president original programming at FX. “The pilot directed by Janicza Bravo is brilliant, and we can’t wait to resume production with this incredibly talented and dedicated cast.”
Kindred centers on Dana (Johnson), an aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and moved to Los Angeles to claim a future that for once feels all her own. Before she can get settled into her new home, however, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time to a 19th century plantation with which she and her family are most surprisingly and intimately linked. An interracial romance threads through her past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront the secrets she never knew ran through her blood.
Jacobs-Jenkins will serve as showrunner on the series and executive produces with Courtney Lee-Mitchell (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), who holds the rights to the novel; Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures; The Americans EPs Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields; Ernestine Walker; and Merrilee Heifetz.
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