Coming off an Academy Award win for Best Picture, Barry Jenkins has found his next project. According to The New York Times, the writer and director of Moonlight is collaborating once again with his Oscar darling’s producers for Amazon’s new series, The Underground Railroad.
Though the project has been cooking up for a while, Amazon only recently confirmed its role in developing the series. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead, Jenkins will once again handle directorial and writing duties. His company, Pastel, will executive produce in collaboration with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. The novel focuses on a young slave making an escape towards freedom via the eponymous historical entity. However, it also takes some very literal interpretations toward the term railroad, and locomotives factor heavily into the story.
“Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking. In Amazon, we’ve found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision,” Jenkins said. Moonlight, which told a three part story from the eyes of a man coming of age, featured such a free flowing style that spent time fleshing out characters and their impact on one another. Whitehead’s novel, filled with powerful imagery and wide ranging metaphors, lends itself perfectly to such an artistic goal.
The series has not officially received a green light, but the official acknowledgement by Amazon as well as Jenkins being attached gives it a solid foundation from which to move forward. As of now, no information aside from its existence (including episode number, release date, or casting) is available. However, fans of historical pieces and outstanding creative minds can stay focused on the likelihood of another fantastic series to come.
Stay tuned with mxdwn Television for more information about Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad from Amazon.