Sound the alarm: TV has landed yet another of the movies’ best and brightest. Hot off the (chaotic) Oscar win for Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins will next go to work at Amazon, writing and directing a new drama series based on Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.

In addition to writing and directing the hour-long limited series based on Whitehead’s 2016 novel, Jenkins will also executive produce with Moonlight partners Pastel and Plan B. The story itself follows young Georgia slave Cora, who escapes her pre-Civil War plantation and finds the “Underground Railroad” is a literal system of trains and tracks.

Said Barry Jenkins of the new series:

Going back to The Intuitionist, Colson’s writing has always defied convention, and The Underground Railroad is no different. It’s a groundbreaking work that pays respect to our nation’s history while using the form to explore it in a thoughtful and original way. Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking, and in Amazon, we’ve found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision.

There’s no immediate timetable for The Underground Railroad, but stay tuned for more on Barry Jenkins’ new Amazon series as it arrives.

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