Patricia Cornwell’s beloved Kay Scarpetta series is coming to life, courtesy of two of Hollywood’s biggest leading ladies—Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Kay Scarpetta series began with Cornwell’s first book in 1990 called Postmortem. Since then, there have been a total of 26 books released in the series, including 2022’s Livid. In all, over 100 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide.
According to Deadline,
“Scarpetta is a fictional, brilliant and beautiful, forensic pathologist, who is the protagonist in the popular series of crime novels. Inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Farinelli Fierro, she uses forensic technology to solve crimes. The character is of Italian descent and across the novels is based in Florida, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina.”
Deadline reports that Amazon Prime Video has ordered two eight-episode seasons of the series, which will be executive produced by both Kidman and Curtis. The show will be show run by Liz Sarnoff, who has previously worked on Barry, Lost, and Westworld.
Kidman will reportedly star as Scarpetta, the forensic pathologist crime fighter. The Oscar-winning actress has recently been seen in The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers and is set to appear in the upcoming Apple TV+ series Roar. Curtis will play Scarpetta’s sister Dorothy, marking her first regular television role since appearing as Cathy Munsch on Scream Queens.
Cornwell celebrated the news of the upcoming series on Instagram, writing, “Scarpetta friends, we’ve waited 33 years for this.”
View this post on Instagram
The series marks a major move for Curtis, who purchased the rights to the series back in June 2021. At the time, she said in a statement, “Patricia Cornwell is a bonafide literary trailblazer, and collaborating with her to bring her beloved character Kay Scarpetta to life through the power of television and to introduce her to an entirely new audience is exciting.”
Kidman and Curtis both have a long history of acting in feature films, but this marks the first time they will be sharing the screen together.
