Amazon Studios Inks Deals with Plan B, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna

Among the new announcements from Amazon Studios is news of a first-look deal with award-winning actors and producers Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, as well as an overall TV deal with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and pact with director and screenwriter Steve McQueen.

Under the exclusive new agreement with the Academy- and Emmy Award-winning team at Plan B—its first-ever devoted to television production—the company will develop and produce series to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Plan B is currently in production with Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins on the upcoming Amazon original series The Underground Railroad and will also produce the new Amazon original series Outer Range, created by Brian Watkins. Plan B is also working with Amazon Studios, along with Legendary Television, to develop Paper Girls, a dramatic series based on Brian K. Vaughan’s best-selling graphic novel.

Amazon Studios has also tied up with Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle) and Luna (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), who currently serve as executive producers on the upcoming limited series Untitled Cortés and Moctezuma Project. As part of the deal, Bernal and Luna will create and produce content for Amazon Studios to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. Luna and Bernal recently announced their new production house in Mexico, La Corriente del Golfo, an independent company for cinematic, theatrical and TV productions and a variety of community-oriented projects.

An overall deal has also been signed with McQueen, under which he will create and produce content for Amazon Studios to premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories. As part of the deal, the television project Last Days, a Lammas Park and See-Saw Films production, has been put into development. McQueen’s upcoming drama Small Axe, a Turbine Studios and Lammas Park production for BBC One with Amazon co-producing in the U.S., starring John Boyega and Letitia Wright, will premiere on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. later in 2020.

Amazon Studios has greenlit Jack Reacher, a drama based on the character from Lee Child’s international best-selling book series. The series is being produced by Amazon Studios, Skydance Television and Paramount Television Studios. It will be written by Nick Santora (Scorpion, Prison Break), who will also executive produce and serve as showrunner for the series. The first season will be based on the first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor.

Meanwhile, Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Quantico) and Richard Madden (Bodyguard) will star in Citadel, the new global series from the Russo Brothers’ AGBO. A local-language production of the franchise will originate from Mexico, in addition to the previously announced versions in Italy and India. Madden and Chopra Jonas will star in the U.S. “mothership” edition of the series.

In other casting news, Meagan Good, Grace Byers, Jerrie Johnson and Shoniqua Shandai will star in an untitled Tracy Oliver project. The half-hour comedy series from Oliver (Girls Trip), Universal Television and Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon Studios additionally announced that Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip, The Best Man Holiday) will direct the first two episodes.

The first group of series regulars set to star in the new Amazon original series based on stories from J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic The Lord of the Rings novels has been unveiled. Newly revealed cast members include Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers and Daniel Weyman. Production will begin in February.

The Amazon original series Making the Cut, hosted and executive produced by Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, has been slated to premiere on Prime Video on Friday, March 27. The ten-episode fashion competition series, which brings together a diverse group of 12 talented entrepreneurs and designers, will premiere two new episodes each week, culminating in a finale on April 24. It is being billed as the first-ever global and instantly shoppable series, with limited editions of the winning look from each episode to be available for purchase exclusively on Amazon Fashion in the “Making the Cut” store.