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Lisa Zwerling and Karyn Usher will be showrunners on the drama based on Catherine Ryan Howard’s novel ’56 Days.’
By Rick Porter
Television Writer
Prime Video has given the green light to a thriller series that counts James Wan as one of its executive producers.
Amazon’s streaming platform has ordered Obsession, which follows two people who fall fast and hard for one another — only for the relationship to end in murder. The series is based on Catherine Ryan Howard’s best-selling novel 56 Days.
Lisa Zwerling (ER, When We Rise) and Karyn Usher (Bones, Prison Break) are adapting the novel and will executive produce along with Wan’s Atomic Monster banner. The project from Amazon MGM Studios has been in the works since the spring, although work on it halted during the writers strike.
“It’s a privilege to be trusted by the ingenious Catherine Ryan Howard in adapting the engrossing story of 56 Days for the screen,” said Nick Pepper, head of U.S. SVOD wholly owned development for Amazon MGM Studios. “I have no doubt that the visionary team of James Wan, Lisa Zwerling, and Karyn Usher will transform this page-turner into a must-see original series for Prime Video subscribers around the globe.”
Obsession will center on Oliver and Ciara, who meet randomly in a supermarket and quickly fall into a relationship. “Fifty-six days later, homicide investigators arrive at Oliver’s apartment to find an unidentified body — brutally murdered and intentionally decomposed,” the show’s description reads. “Did he kill her? Did she kill him? Intercutting between an intense single day in the present investigation and the twisted trajectory of the young lovers’ affair in the past, the series is both a unique crime story and a riveting, erotic, psychological thriller.”
Howard wrote the novel during COVID-19 lockdowns in Dublin in 2020, and the novel is set during the height of the pandemic. The series, however, will not use the pandemic as a backdrop.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Karyn and Lisa on this propulsive and sexy thriller based on Catherine’s captivating novel,” said Wan. “Their vision for the series brings a fresh take for contemporary audiences, while still remaining true to the genre.”
Zwerling, Usher and Wan executive produce with Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear and Rob Hackett. Danielle Bozzone will oversee the series for Atomic Monster. Howard is a co-exec producer.
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