Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is working with Amazon to transform The Underground Railroad into a limited series

Barry Jenkins.
(Image credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director and writer of the Best Picture-awarded film Moonlight, is teaming up with Amazon for his next project. Amazon announced Monday that Jenkins is set to write and direct a television adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad, a story of slavery and the South intertwined with reinvented details — like a literal railroad system serving as the historic slave escape route. The fictional novel won the 2016 National Book Award.

"It's a groundbreaking work that pays respect to our nation's history while using the form to explore it in a thoughtful and original way. Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking," Jenkins said in a statement. "In Amazon we've found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision."

Actor Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Jenkins' production company Pastel are on board to executive produce the limited series. The New York Times noted the series has not "officially been given the green light, though the high-profile nature of the title and figures involved make that seem likely."

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A potential debut date has yet to be announced.

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