Ava DuVernay Romantic Drama Series Starring Joshua Jackson & Lauren Ridloff Not Moving Forward At Starz

Ava DuVernay’s romantic drama series, which landed a three-year script-to-series commitment in May 2022, is not moving forward at Starz, Deadline has confirmed.

The series had begun filming in Wilmington, N.C., in March but was paused in May due to the WGA strike. It was to star Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff, who also executive produced, and followed two polar opposites who become intertwined in a love affair that turns their worlds – and those of everyone around them – upside down.

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Within the past month or so, Starz made a similar decision not to go forward with The Venery of Samantha Bird, which also had paused production in May due to the strikes with two episodes left to film, and also canceled Heels, Run The World and Blindspotting after two seasons each.

DuVernay’s 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.

The project would have reunited Ridloff and Jackson who previously starred opposite each other in Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God.

DuVernay was to oversee the writing for the series through her Peabody Award-winning narrative change collective Array Filmworks. Array Filmworks and Warner Bros. Television was to produce the project for Starz.

Deadline’s sister pub Variety was first to report the news.

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