The history-making Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker second unit director is teaming with Ava DuVernay to adapt Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi novel Dawn as an Amazon Studios drama series.
The project, which is currently in development with a sizable script-to-series commitment, will be written and directed by Mahoney, who last year became the first woman and first African American to helm a Star Wars feature.
Published in 1987, Dawn revolves around an African American woman who works with aliens to resurrect the human race some 250 years after a nuclear war. Mahoney will pen the script and also direct the potential pilot. (A script-to-series order means if Amazon execs like the script, the project bypasses the traditional pilot phase and goes directly to series.)
Charles D. King’s MACRO previously optioned the rights to Dawn, a Hugo Award-winning novel, and will serve as the studio on the drama. DuVernay will exec produce via her Array Filmworks. Mahoney, Allen Bain, Gary Pearl and Thomas L. Carter will also exec produce. MACRO TV Studios president Marta Fernandez will oversee for the company.
Mahoney and DuVernay are both repped by CAA and attorney Nina Shaw.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
