In what Deadline called "one of the biggest star power packages to hit the TV marketplace in awhile," Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us, American Fiction, Paradise), Oscar winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers, Only Murders In the Building), and Winston Duke (Black Panther) "are in talks to lead a limited series based on Percival Everett's acclaimed 2022 novel The Trees. Marcus Gardley (The Chi) is writing the adaptation, which has sparked a bidding war."
Gardley is executive producing alongside Brown and Abby Victor for Indian Meadows, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and Katie Zucker via Mad Massive Entertainment and Everett. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.
Everett's The Trees "opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk," Deadline wrote.
The project reunites Brown and Hinds following their recent collaboration on Washington Black, adapted from Esi Edugyan's novel. Hinds was creator, showrunner and executive producer on that project, with Brown starring and exec producing.