Daniel Dae Kim’s ‘Butterfly’ Lands Amazon Series Order

Butterfly is taking flight at Amazon.

The retail giant and streamer has handed out a series order to the scripted drama series based on the Boom Studios graphic novel of the same name with Daniel Dae Kim set to star and exec produce.

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The six-episode series is described as a spy thriller that explores family dynamics in the world of global espionage. The series revolves around David Jung, a former U.S. intelligence operative living in South Korea whose life is blown to pieces when the consequences of an impossible decision from his past come back to haunt him, and he finds himself pursued by Rebecca, a deadly, sociopathic young agent assigned to kill him.

Ken Woodruff (The Mentalist, Gotham) is set to serve as showrunner and is credited as a co-creator of the series along with Steph Cha. Arash Amel created the Butterfly graphic novel, which was written by Amel and Marguerite Bennett and illustrated by Antonio Fuso and Stefano Simeone. Woodruff and Cha exec produce alongside Kim and his Amazon-based 3AD banner’s John Cheng. Boom’s Stephen Christy and Ross Richie exec produce alongside Amel.

Kim’s 3AD spearheaded Butterfly, which was put into development in February at Amazon under his first-look deal with the streamer.

The speedy series order comes as sources say Amazon’s head of U.S. wholly owned series and development Nick Pepper has been under pressure to produce results from a wave of expensive development. The executive has also been fast-tracking True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto’s Western, which was shifted from an original idea to a TV reboot of The Magnificent Seven. Sources say Amazon is also formalizing series orders to a couple of other projects in Pepper’s group, which should be announced in the coming weeks.

It’s unclear when work on Butterfly — or any of Amazon’s development — will continue as the Writers Guild of America is currently in its fourth week of a strike against streamers and studios for such issues as fair pay, mini-rooms and AI.

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