Ed Brubaker’s ‘Criminal’ Ordered To Series By Amazon With Jordan Harper As Co-Showrunner

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read
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Prime Video has given a series order to Criminal, a drama based on the multi-Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series created by Ed Brubaker, who writes the comic, and Sean Phillips, who illustrates it. Brubaker, who penned the pilot script, will co-showrun the TV series with crime fiction author Jordan Harper (Hightown).

The project, produced by Amazon MGM Studios, has been on fast track development at Amazon, which opened a writers room in early 2023. The process was interrupted by the WGA strike.

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Criminal is described as an interlocking universe of crime stories. As Brubaker explained to Deadline in a 2019 interview, “Criminal tells the interweaving saga of several generations of families tied together by the crimes and murders of the past.”

Brubaker and Harper executive produce alongside Phillips, Sarah Carbiener, Phillip Barnett and Legendary Television.

“Criminal is a beloved graphic novel created by the most iconic team in the history of comics,” said Nick Pepper, head of U.S. SVOD wholly owned development, Amazon MGM Studios. “I know our global Prime Video customers will immediately embrace this story, and I look forward to working with Ed, Jordan, and the team to bring it to the screen.”

As Deadline reported last February, Pepper and his lieutenant Matt King, Head of Tentpole, Genre and Universe Development of Wholly Owned Content, championed bringing in Criminal to Amazon. In his previous role as President of Legendary Television, Pepper signed Brubaker into a development deal there in 2019 and, along with EVP Development King, put Criminal in development at the indie studio, which got an EP credit on the Amazon version as a result.

Brubaker and Phillips have spent over 20 years creating such best-selling crime comics as Criminal, The Fade Out, Kill or be Killed, Reckless and Pulp. Their library of graphic novels has been translated into over a dozen languages. Separately, Brubaker has written key arcs for Marvel and DC Comics titles such as Batman, Catwoman, The Immortal Iron Fist, and Captain America, including creating the character the Winter Soldier.

As a TV writer, Brubaker served as supervising producer on HBO’s Westworld, and, with director Nicolas Winding Refn, he co-created Amazon’s Too Old to Die Young, the first streaming series to debut at Cannes. He worked on Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and was co-showrunner of Batman: Caped Crusader, the animated series from executive producers Bruce Timm, J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, which is now set up at Amazon.

Alongside his TV work, which also includes Gotham and The Mentalist, Harper is the award-winning author of She Rides Shotgun (which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and is currently being adapted as a feature film with Taron Egerton attached to star) and Everybody Knows (named as a best Crime Novel of the Year by the New York Times for 2023).

“Sean and I have been building this world in our books for over a decade, and now to be able to bring it to life for Amazon is just incredible. And to have Amazon support the project the way they have, and show so much faith in my and Jordan’s vision for the show is even more incredible,” Brubaker said.

He is repped by Rothman Brecher Ehrich Livingston and Cowans, DeBates, Abrahams & Sheppard. Harper is repped by CAA, Literate and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman.

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