The forthcoming digital platform Quibi has announced the new sci-fi drama series Don’t Look Deeper from director Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Miss Dala), Indiewire has learned. The series follows Helena Howard (Madeline’s Madeline) who plays a teenager with a huge, perhaps “otherworldly” secret. According to the official synopsis, the series is “set in Merced, California, ‘fifteen minutes into the future,’ Don’t Look Deeper centers on a high school senior who can’t seem to shake the feeling that something about her just isn’t right. And that something is… she’s not human… not one of us. This revelation of what she really is, where she comes from, and who has started looking for her, sets in motion a series of events that suddenly puts her entire life in jeopardy.”

The cast also includes Emily Mortimer (Mary Poppins Returns) and Don Cheadle (Avengers: Endgame). Hardwicke will serve as director and executive producer, while Jeffrey Liebe will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Director Hardwicke is a big fan of the expansion of the “scripted media space” and the opportunities it offers to producers and characters that do not receive the same attention in the blockbuster space, she told Indiewire. “I’ve got two, three, four different series that are in different stages of development,” Hardwicke said. “We’re trying to get any of them greenlit, like tomorrow, and start making them. It’s also quite challenging for any director to get anything made. … But I love what’s happening on television, premium cable, streaming, there’s just so many interesting shows on now. And opportunities [for] complex characters, they’ve got great female characters!” Hardwicke added.

The digital platform Quibi offers both a “short form content” and a “smartphone-focused design.” Quibi’s plan is to cater to an “underserved” market, and this concept should help the platform distinguish itself from major streamers such as Hulu and Netflix, Jeffrey Katzenberg said at the Banff World Media Festival.

Quibi’s plan is to launch in April, 2020 with eight productions, including Don’t Look Deeper and Spielberg After Dark.