‘These Women’ TV Series Based On Book In Works From ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Creator Bruce Miller & MGM/UA TV

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read

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EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, MGM/UA Television has acquired the rights to author Ivy Pochoda’s new thriller novel These Women for series adaptation. Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale creator Bruce Miller will develop and produce the project as part of White Oak’s overall deal with MGM/UA. Miller will oversee the project and will bring in a writer to pen the adaptation.

These Women, set for release today by HarperCollins, is described as a serial killer story like you’ve never seen before – a literary thriller of female empowerment and social change. Those are also leading themes in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which Miller adapted into the Emmy-winning Hulu/MGM drama series.

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Set in West Adams, a rapidly changing part of South Los Angeles, These Women focuses on five very different women whose lives are steeped in danger and anguish. They’re connected by one man and his deadly obsession, though not all of them know that yet. There’s Dorian, still adrift after her daughter’s murder remains unsolved; Julianna, a young dancer nicknamed Jujubee, who lives hard and fast, resisting anyone trying to slow her down; Essie, a brilliant vice cop who sees a crime pattern emerging where no one else does; Marella, a daring performance artist whose work has long pushed boundaries but now puts her in peril; and Anneke, a quiet woman who has turned a willfully blind eye to those around her for far too long. The careful existence they have built for themselves starts to crumble when two murders rock their neighborhood.

White Oaks Pictures will produce the adaptation with Miller and Priscilla Porianda serving as executive producers.

Miller is the creator, executive producer and showrunner of the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale, which has been renewed for a fourth season on Hulu. Miller is repped by attorney Jamie Mandelbaum of Jackoway Tyerman.

In addition to These Women, Pochoda is the author of the novels Wonder Valley and Visitation Street. Wonder Valley won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was chosen as an NPR and Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Visitation Street won the Prix Page America in France and was chosen as an Amazon Best Book of the Month, Amazon Best Book of 2013, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Her first novel The Art of Disappearing, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2009. She teaches creative writing at the Studio 526 Skid Row. Pochoda is repped by CAA on behalf of Kimberly Witherspoon of Inkwell Management.

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