Karen Read Trial Drama Starring Elizabeth Banks in the Works at Prime Video
One of the more closely followed court cases of recent years is getting a dramatic treatment.
Prime Video is developing a limited series based on the Karen Read trial, with Elizabeth Banks set to play the lead role and executive produce via her Brownstone Productions. The project comes from Warner Bros. Television and writer-showrunner Justin Noble (The Sex Lives of College Girls, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), with David E. Kelley also executive producing. The potential series will explore “society’s obsession with true crime, the allure of conspiracy, and the deepening crisis of trust in our institutions,” per a logline.
The WBTV-Prime Video project is based on the podcast Karen, produced by Law & Crime and Wondery; Brownstone Productions initiated development on the project and worked with Warner Bros. and Wondery to acquire rights to the podcast, later bringing on Noble to adapt the matieral.
Read and her defense attorney, Alan Jackson, signed a separate deal to develop a scripted take on her case with Killers of the Flower Moon producer LBI Entertainment.
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In June, a jury acquitted Read on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe (she was convicted on a drunk driving charge). The trial was the second for Read after an earlier one ended in a mistrial. The case attracted intense media interest, with news shows, podcasts and documentaries like A Body in the Snow all covering minute details.
Noble, who has an overall deal at Warner Bros. TV, will executive produce with Kelley and Matt Tinker of David E. Kelley Productions; Banks, Max Handelman and Krissy Wall of Brownstone Productions; Jen Sargent, Marshall Lewy, Aaron Hart, and Jeni Mulein of Wondery; and Rachel Stockman and Dan Abrams of Law & Crime.
Banks is coming off another Prime Video series, The Better Sister, and has Peacock’s The Miniature Wife on deck. She and Brownstone Productions are repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and Johnson Shapiro. Noble is with WME and Hansen Jacobson. Kelley is repped by CAA.
Deadline first reported the news.
