WGN America Also Set to Launch its Own Miniseries Based on Underground Railroad Movement, to be Titled Underground, Starring Former Law & Order: SVU actor Christopher Meloni
WGN America is going forward with its 10-episode straight-to-series order with Underground, a pre-Civil War slave drama project created and to be produced by Akiva Goldsman of A Beautiful Mind fame, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The cable network originally made its announcement in August, or before NBC revealed that it is also launching an eight-hour miniseries, titled Freedom Run, adapted from Betty DeRamus' 2005 book "Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From the Underground Railroad." Both Underground and Freedom Run cover the same subject - the 19th century underground railroad movement by slaves of African descent in the United States to escape to the 'free states' or to Canada with the aid of abolitionists and their allies who were sympathetic to their cause.
As gathered by Deadline, WGN America's Underground will be focused on the story of a group of slaves who plan a daring escape from a Georgia plantation to cross 600 miles to freedom, aided along the way by a secret abolitionist couple running a station on the Underground Railroad, as they evade those tasked with bringing them back, dead or alive.
With Goldman as series co-creator, co-writers and co-executive producers are Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, along with Tory Tunnell and Joby Harold from Safehouse Pictures. Anthony Hemingway is set to direct the series' first two episodes. Production is set to begin this spring for a 2016 premiere.
Confirmed to star in the miniseries are Christopher Meloni, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Aldis Hodge and Jessica De Gouw. Meloni is cast as August, a secretive mercenary who walks a tightrope between survival and morality; Smollett-Bell as Rosalee, a shy house slave with a powerful inner strength and courage; Hodge as Noah, a brave and clever slave on the plantation with dreams of freedom and a dangerous plan to escape; and De Gouw as Elizabeth, a socialite who shares her husband's abolitionist ideals.
While NBC's Freedom Run has Stevie Wonder at its side to take care of the music, Deadline says "Kanye West is in talks for a role on the music side of the series" for WGN America's Underground.