Deadline is reporting that Skydance Television have acquired the rights for P. Djéli Clark’s novel Ring Shout and are developing it into a television series, with Kasi Lemmons attached to write, direct and serve as showrunner and Kiki Layne set to star.
The historical fantasy novel follows an otherworldly evil that has risen in the 1920’s South in the form of monsters who take up residence within the bodies of people filled with hate…namely the Ku Klux Klan. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation is helping to swell the Klan’s ranks and the monsters are drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of racism. Across the nation, they spread fear and violence, but even monsters can die as standing in their way is a young Black woman, Maryse Boudreaux, and her two friends and fellow resistance fighters; a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something bigger is brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up and Maryse, haunted by events of her past, is the only one who can put a stop to it all.
P. Djéli Clark, Kasi Lemmons and Kiki Layne will also serve as executive producers alongside Marc Evans, Matt Jackson, and Skydance Television’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost.
