'Black Widow' Gets a TV Series on ABC from Leonardo DiCaprio's Production Company
ABC will develop a "Black Widow" television series. It's not, however, based on the Marvel comic superheroine that Scarlett Johansson plays on the big screen. The planned show, which involves Leonardo DiCaprio's company, will be an adaptation of a Scandinavian drama.
"Black Widow" will be adapted from 2016's "Black Widows" from Finnish creators Mikko Polla and Roope Lehtinen. Caroline Dries, who was the showrunner for "The Vampire Diaries," will write the U.S. version's scripts and executive produce the show for ABC, Sony Pictures Television, and DiCaprio's Appian Way production outfit.
The original story of "Black Widows" featured three women in bad marriages whose abusive husbands died under mysterious circumstances. Refinery 29 compared the premise of the series as similar to HBO's "Big Little Lies."
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Polla and Lehtinen's "Black Widows" is actually a remake as well. It's based from "Mustat Lesket," which aired in Finland in 2014. Polla and Lehtinen's show ran on American television on November 2016 via Acorn TV.
ABC has not yet earmarked a premiere schedule for "Black Widow" and casting announcements might follow in the coming months or once Dries' finishes the script. The scribe is also attached to previous shows like "Smallville" and "Melrose Place." Dries is also working on another show for NBC called "Witchblade," which has been adapted from a comic series.
Meanwhile, this will be the first television show on a broadcast network from Appian Way. DiCaprio's company also produces "The Right Stuff" on National Geographic and a mafia drama that will still arrive on cable via Showtime.
DiCaprio established Appian Way in 2004 and brought box office and award-winning films like "The Aviator, " "Shutter Island," "The Wolf of Wolfstreet" and "Revenant." The production outfit will begin work on the Theodore Roosevelt biopic next. It will star DiCaprio with Martin Scorsese as director. The high profile movie, however, has no release date for now.
