Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis are teaming for an Amazon series based on Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta novels, Variety has confirmed with sources.
Kidman would star as Scarpetta with Curtis playing her sister, Dorothy. Sources say that deals for the show are not yet done, but that it is nearing a two-season order of eight episodes each at the streamer.
Reps for Amazon declined to comment.
Liz Sarnoff (“Barry,” “Lost”) will write the series and serve as executive producer and showrunner. Kidman and Per Saari will executive produce via Blossom Films, while Curtis will executive produce via Comet Pictures. Blumhouse Television’s Jason Blum, Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold also executive produce. Curtis is currently under a first-look deal with Blumhouse.
Cornwell has written over 20 books in the Scarpetta series. Scarpetta starts out as the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the books before becoming a private forensic consultant.
News of the series coming together comes nearly two years since Curtis and Blumhouse announced they were developing a series version of the books.
“Patricia Cornwell is a bonafide literary trailblazer, and collaborating with her to bring her beloved character Kay Scarpetta to life through the power of television and to introduce her to an entirely new audience is exciting,” Curtis said at the time of the original announcement. “The confluence of Blumhouse and Comet bringing to life a dark, fun and layered work world and family life, spearheaded by the smart and sexy indomitable Kay Scarpetta is going to be a thrilling ride.”
This is the second series that Curtis has set up at Amazon. Curtis, who recently picked up her first Oscar nomination for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” is also an executive producer on “The Sticky.” That show was ordered at Amazon in April 2022 and tells the true story of the “Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.”
Kidman also has multiple shows in the works at Amazon. Those include the dramas “Expats,” “Pretty Things,” “A Good Marriage,” “Things I Know to Be True,” and “Hope.” Kidman will executive produce and star in all of those projects except “A Good Marriage,” which she is just executive producing.
