HBO Max and J.J. Abrams’ series Duster had added female lead to its cast. Rachel Hilson (Love, Victor, This Is Us) will join Josh Holloway (Lost, Yellowstone) in the new period drama series, via The Hollywood Reporter.
Duster is set in 1972 in the Southwest and follows Hilson’s character, Nina, the first Black female FBI agent as she recruits Holloway’s character, a daring getaway driver in a conspicuous effort to take down a spreading crime syndicate. The series’ first season will run for eight episodes. Abrams will serve as showrunner alongside LaToya Morgan (Shameless, Into the Badlands). The pair also wrote the first two installments of the season, which were directed by Steph Green (Watchmen, The Americans) . Abrams and Morgan will also executive produce with Bad Robot’s Rachel Rusch Rich (Demimonde, Presumed Innocent.
Duster is the first series to spring from a nine-figure film and TV deal Abrams’ Bad Robot company signed with WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros. Discovery) in 2019. Bad Robot is Abram’s American film and television production company that was founded in May of 1999. The production company is most known for their notable projects in the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Mission: Impossible franchises. Morgan’s production studio TinkerToy Productions is also attached to the project.
Morgan described the project as, “an amalgam of all [her] favorite things” with “high octane storytelling” featuring deep characters and so much heart, via Deadline. She goes on to claim it as It a dream project, and holds great thanks for the teams at Warner Bros. and HBO Max that believed so much in this show to see it through to production.
Sarah Aubrey, the Head of Original Content at HBO Max, celebrates this achievement as well in a statement that said that they are “delighted to bring this high-voltage crime caper from the brilliant minds of J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan to the HBO Max audience”. They close by adding that this show has “all the elements of a great Max Original, with propulsive storytelling, fantastic characters, and some truly bad-ass car chases”, via TV Line.
Duster will stream exclusively on HBO Max. No release date has been announced.