Serial, NPR’s This American Life offshoot podcast that took the nation by storm last October, is coming to television. Host Sarah Koenig and her producing partner Julie Snyder are behind the TV adaptation, and they’re teaming up with Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Last Man on Earth, The LEGO Movie) to make it happen. According to Deadline, they’re “develop[ing] a cable series that would follow the making of the podcast as it follows a case.” The case at hand, mind you, is not the Adnan Syed investigation featured in the podcast’s first season; the TV show will tackle a new, still undisclosed case.
It was previously reported that Koenig and Snyder have been hard at work on seasons 2 and 3 of the Serial podcast. Last week, I attended a Serial-themed event hosted by the producing partners and they confirmed that they’re still concurrently working on the new seasons, due out this fall and in Spring 2016, respectively. They also referenced a mystery third project in the works, and perhaps the Serial TV series is what they were teasing.
Lord and Miller and Fox21 Television Studios have optioned the rights to the podcast and are currently shopping it around to cable networks. Due to Serial‘s immense popularity, it won’t take long for nets to bite.
“Chris and Phil take an unexpected approach to telling stories and that is so appealing to us at Serial,” Snyder said. “Developing a show with them is exciting because we feel like we speak the same language, only they’re smarter than us.”
“From the very first week of Serial’s release last fall, everyone at Fox 21TVS was obsessed with the podcast,” Fox21 head Bert Salke commented. “One year later, thanks to the incredible passion of Chris and Phil, who flew to New York and shared their vision with Sarah, Julie, Alissa [Shipp, This American Life producer] and Ira [Glass, This American Life host/producer] for what the series could be, we’re moving forward on this exciting project. What you have here is a ‘once every ten years creative storytelling phenom’ with a ‘once in ten years take’ with a ‘once in twenty-five years creative team.’ We are confident we’ll attract a spectacular writer and look forward to pitching it to outlets very soon.”
A self-proclaimed ardent fan of Serial the podcast, this news makes perfect sense to me. Serial, to me, was more than a podcast; it truly felt like I was listening to a TV show and imagining it come to life in my mind. Sort of like an audiobook, I guess. Taking that inventiveness and broadcasting it on a more mainstream platform opens up the addicting world of Serial to a larger audience. Details are scarce, but it sounds like the show will have a camera crew follow Koenig & co. as they perform their investigative duties and try to get to the bottom of an intriguing, unsolved case. This is me spitballing here, but maybe the series will follow the making of Serial’s third season, serving as a visual companion to the podcast. Whatever form it takes, the exciting possibilities are making my head spin. Serial is officially taking over, and there’s no better news than that.
[Via Deadline]