Series produced by Michael B. Jordan and Rashida Jones have been ordered to series at AMC, Shadow And Act has learned.
61 Street, from Jordan’s Outlier Society and Peter Moffat, has been ordered as “a two-season television event series with eight episodes per season.”
It is described as “a propulsive courtroom drama that follows Moses Johnson, a promising, Black high school athlete, who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system. Taken by the police as a supposed gang member, he finds himself in the eye of the storm as police and prosecutors seek revenge for the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong. Timely and provocative, 61st Street is set against the systemic abuse happening in some of our country’s most vulnerable communities.”
Moffat will be the showrunner and executive producer.
“At AMC we believe in shows that have startling vision and fresh voice, with something to say. These two projects couldn’t be more in our sweet spot, as both have something big to say, and a genius way of saying it. Timely and audacious, 61st Street combines the irresistible form of a courtroom drama with a bracingly provocative take on race in America today. The scripts are truly un-put-downable, and the ambition of this series is breathtaking. With a dream team on board of Peter Moffat and the Outlier Society team of Michael B. Jordan and Alana Mayo, we think 61st Street will electrify viewers. We are approaching this series as a two-season television event and ordering both seasons from the outset, evidence of how excited we are by this team’s vision,” said Sarah Barnett, President of AMC Networks Entertainment Group & AMC Studios.
“61st Street is an important commentary and observation of those impacted by the complicated history of race and the criminal legal system in America,” said Jordan and Mayo. “Our admiration of Peter’s prior work and his personal experience with this subject matter are reasons we’re honored to be a part [of] bringing it to life. We are lucky to have found an equally passionate partner in AMC.”
Moffat said, “Having spent ten years at the criminal bar and the last two years researching deep inside the criminal justice system in Chicago, this is a story I’ve been waiting to write all my professional life. ‘61st Street’ is a thriller–supple plotting and dynamic storytelling are central to everything–but race, politics, history, jurisprudence, and police culture are all fundamental to what this project is about and broaden its scope into what I hope will be a story for our times. Working alongside Alana Mayo and Michael B. Jordan makes me happy and humble and I’m very grateful to AMC for their amazing support.”
AMC has also ordered Kevin Can F**k Himself, which is produced by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack through their Le Train Train production banner. The series “probes the secret life of a type of woman we all grew up believing we knew: the sitcom wife. Kevin Can F**k Himself looks to break television convention and ask what the world looks like through her eyes. Alternating between single-camera realism and multi-camera comedy, the formats will inform one another as we imagine what happens when the sitcom wife escapes her confines and forces the world to let her take the lead.”
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Photo: Getty Images
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