Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter
MADtv producer David Salzman is teaming with Canada’s Thunderbird Films to bring Faye Kellerman’s best-selling Decker-Lazarus mystery novels to the small screen.
Thunderbird has optioned Kellerman’s debut novel, The Ritual Bath, which is set in the world of Orthodox Judaism in the California hills and features LAPD detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, a widowed mother who witnesses a brutal crime and helps solve it.
“Faye (Kellerman) is a world-class talent, I am thrilled to be working with her and Thunderbird to introduce her incredibly fresh characters and plotlines to an audience that transcends her enormous existing fan base,” said Salzman, whose credits include Dallas, Max Headroom and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in a statement.
Kellerman has published over 30 million books, including the New York Times best-seller Justiceand Prayers for the Dead. Salzman will executive produce the TV co-production with Vancouver-based Thunderbird, whose recent projects include Blade Runner 2049, starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, and the animated Netflix original series Beat Bugs.
“Good storytelling is so important in our business. With this project, we get to work with a phenomenal team on stories that people already love, what a great opportunity,” Thunderbird president Tim Gamble said in his own statement.
Salzman is also showrunning The CW’s MADtv reboot, an update of the former late-night sketch show that aired on Fox from 1995 to 2009.