Prime Video's library of book-to-screen adaptations is expanding — and in some style! Following successful TV takes on everything from The Lord Of The Rings to Bosch to Reacher, Amazon has ordered two seasons of Scarpetta, a crime drama based on Patricia Cornwell's best-selling books about the personal and professional challenges faced by a top Virginia coroner. And what's more, per THR's reporting, the show has lined up a hell of a cast. Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis are set to star as chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta and her sister Dorothy respectively, with the ensemble including among its ranks Bobby Cannavale, Ariana DeBose, Simon Baker, and more.
Lost and Barry producer Liz Sarnoff will serve as showrunner on the series, for which Curtis' Halloween director David Gordon Green is aboard to direct the first two episodes. In a statement accompanying the series' greenlighting, the Everything Everywhere All At Once star praised her collaborators whilst teasing a rollicking, claret-soaked crime drama ahead. "I’m particularly excited that Nicole Kidman will finally bring [Kay Scarpetta] to life," said Curtis. "I’m also looking forward to playing Nicole’s sister as we tell the story with Liz Sarnoff’s expert care, leadership, skill, and talent, and I am excited to work again with David as our director. I know the ardent fans of the books will be very happy, and the new audience will be compelled by the characters, crimes, and mysteries that are the trifecta of Patricia’s masterful storytelling. Blumhouse, Blossom, and Prime Video are the perfect partners to bring Scarpetta to you, and a warning……..there WILL be blood.”
As the stars of The Perfect Couple and Knives Out respectively, characters, crimes, and mysteries are very much within Kidman and Curtis' wheelhouse — and with Kidman saying in her own statement that she's been trying to get Scarpetta off the ground "for nearly 20 years", this one's clearly a right place, right time situation for everyone involved. We don't know just yet when Scarpetta is set to hit our screens, but in the meantime we can look forward to seeing Nicole Kidman in erotic thriller Babygirl very soon, and JLC has just wrapped filming on Freaky Friday 2 — aka Freakier Friday. What a time to be alive!