According to Deadline, Showtime is currently in the process of developing a new limited series adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon’s New York Times best-selling epic novel of the same. As part of their multi-year overall deal with CBS TV Studios, the long-in-development project will be executive produced by Chabon and wife Ayelet Waldman.
“The team at CBS Studios is the best we’ve ever worked with,” Waldman and Chabon said in a joint statement. “We’re looking forward with so much excitement to this next phase of our collaboration.”
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“Ayelet and Michael are two of America’s pre-eminent writers,” President of CBS Television Studios, David Stapf said. “From award-winning novels and non-fiction to their television and film collaborations, they have a remarkable body of work. We’re thrilled to have them on our incredibly talented roster.”
First published in 2000, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is being described as an epic tale of love, war and the birth of America’s comic book superhero obsession in big-band-era New York. It follows the story of two boy geniuses named Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, who are living in 1939 New York City.
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The novel’s official synopsis reads: “A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.”
After almost 20 years since its debut, the novel has already sold over millions of copies worldwide and is still being regarded as one of the defining fiction novels of the 21st century. Due to its success and rave reviews from readers and critics alike, Chabon had earned a Pulitzer Prize Award for Fiction in 2001. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay has been credited for the legitimization of comic books as a serious literary genre and was also the inspiration for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s exhibition “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.
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The miniseries will be written by Chabon and Waldman, who recently received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Limited Series for their Netflix’s drama Unbelievable. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay will be executive produced by Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman. It is co-production by Paramount Television and CBS TV Studios. Chabon and Waldman will also be serving as showrunners.
(Photo by Michael Tran/FilmMagic via Getty Images)
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