Ava DuVernay‘s TV follow-up to her film “Origin” isn’t happening anymore. Deadline reports that the director’s romantic drama series for Starz with Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff will fold as DuVernay’s overall deal with Warner Bros. Television ends. The series had already started filming in Wilmington, North Carolina this past Spring before the WGA strike halted production in May. Now it won’t resume shooting at all.
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The show, which landed a three-year script-to-series commitment last year, starred Jackson and Ridloff as an odd couple that get entwined in a love affair that turns their worlds upside down. Jackson and Ridloff previously starred together on stage in the Broadway show “Children of a Lesser God.” Ridloff also served as co-executive producer on the series.
DuVernay planned to oversee the show’s writing through her narrative change collective Array Filmworks, with Array and Warner Bros. Television producing the project for Starz. Now it’s unclear what DuVernay’s next project will be after “Origin,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this Fall.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the abandoned series, courtesy of Deadline:
The half-hour drama chronicled what it takes to fall and stay in a radical, rebellious love. One person is ambitious, while the other is restless. One is ready to commit, while the other debates the merits of relationships. One is Black and one is white. One is deaf and one is not. Though wildly different, the two are emotionally and physically drawn to each other despite personal expectations and public assumptions. Their attraction passionately disrupts notions of race, gender, class, physical ability, and normative culture, elevating to true love that surpasses difference.