'Moonlight' Director Barry Jenkins to Helm Underground Railroad Series for Amazon

Jenkins will write and direct the hour-long program

BY Josiah HughesPublished Mar 27, 2017

From a Best Picture Oscar to a cherished Mexican bootlegBarry Jenkins's Moonlight has received all sorts of well-deserved praise. In the process, it's made Jenkins an in-demand director. Now, he's added an Amazon series to his busy production slate.

As Variety reports, Jenkins will write and direct a new Amazon series about the Underground Railroad. While details are scarce, we know that the show will feature hour-long episodes. It's based on Colson Whitehead's best-selling book The Underground Railroad.

"Going back to The Intuitionist, Colson's writing has always defied convention, and The Underground Railroad is no different," Jenkins said in a statement. "It's a groundbreaking work that pays respect to our nation's history while using the form to explore it in a thoughtful and original way. Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking and in Amazon we've found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision."

The Underground Railroad series isn't the only thing Jenkins has in the works. Along with an adaptation of the Will Eisner graphic novel A Contract with God, he also directed an episode of the Netflix series Dear White People, which premieres in April.

 

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