EXCLUSIVE: Emmy winner David E. Kelley, who created Netflix‘s The Lincoln Lawyer based on Michael Connelly’s novels, is helping bring another popular book character by a bestselling author to the streamer. The prolific writer-producer has teamed with Harlan Coben to adapt his Myron Bolitar novels as a TV series, sources tell Deadline.
In addition to writing the script, Kelley and Coben are executive producing the potential series with David E. Kelley Prods. President Matthew Tinker. Netflix declined comment.
The project has been a priority for Netflix when it re-upped its overall deal with Coben in 2022. The original pact gave the streamer access to 14 Coben books to develop into English-language and foreign-language series as well as films. The 2022 pact added 12 more titles: Coben’s signature 11-book Myron Bolitar series as well as the standalone 2021 novella Win, for an adaptation as an ongoing, U.S.-based series.
The books’ title character is a former top basketball player-turned-owner of agency representing sports stars and celebrities. There have been attempts to adapt the novels in the past, including as a feature, with Coben particularly protective of the character.
“Certainly Myron Bolitar is dear to my heart,” he told Deadline at the time of his Netflix deal renewal in 2022. “I’ve written 34 books, a third of them involved Myron Bolitar; he is my most prized possession, and I’m really happy now that it’s in the Netflix camp, so that we can work hard on making it right. It’s one of the properties I’ve probably been a little bit more precious about. It’s easier to move a story like The Stranger or Stay Close to another country. Myron being a series character that people read over and over again, takes a little bit more care and has to be in the USA.”
Netflix has turned adaptations of Coben novels into somewhat of a cottage industry with a slew of shows in four languages across different countries. They include one of the streamer’s most popular series, the British Fool Me Once, as well as Stay Close, The Stranger, The Innocent, Gone for Good, Hold Tight, The Woods and the recently released Missing You.
This month alone, two more Coben limited series are being released, the Polish-language Just One Look, which debuted March 5, and the Spanish-language Caught. coming out on March 26.
Netflix’s first U.S.-based Coben adaptation, the limited series I Will Find You, just cast Sam Worthington as the lead.
At Netflix, Kelley also recently created and executive produced the limited series A Man In Full starring Jeff Daniels. Additionally, he has the Apple TV+ legal thriller Presumed Innocent, returning for a second season, and upcoming Apple TV+ limited series Margo’s Got Money Troubles starring Elle Fanning.
