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Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment and Blue Monday Productions have set up a Bass Reeves series titled Twin Territories at Amazon, after three decades spent chasing the elusive lawman. The Revelations and The 51-produced series in development at the streamer is based on a novel by preeminent Reeves scholar Art T. Burton. While most people have heard of The Lone Ranger, few know the true story of the man behind the legend, who in his time was arguably the greatest lawman west of the Mississippi. As the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshal, Reeves all but tamed The Wild West single-handedly, bringing well over 3,000 dangerous criminals to justice in his 32 years as a federal peace officer under “Hanging” Judge Parker.

It’s official: Hulu has renewed the scripted series, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, for a second season. The series tells of the origins of the Wu-Tang Clan collective. Mostly fictional, the series explains the tales of actual events that took place during their infancy. Season one, with only 10 episodes, brought viewers into a state of impatience to witness the making of the legendary group’s music.

HBO is developing a hip hop vampire drama from Macro Television Studios and the writing team of Leah Benavides Rodriguez and Carlito Rodriguez. Currently titled “Thirst,” the series tells the story of a brilliant but cocky Atlanta rapper who thinks he’s found his way to stardom when he links up with hip-hop’s hottest group. But he has no idea they are hiding a terrifying secret: They are a family of vampires with roots going back centuries.

As Sonya Winton-Odamtten and Jonathan Kidd put the finishing touches on HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country, the writing duo saw the coronavirus pandemic unfold and felt they needed to jump into action. They teamed with the non-profit Frontline Foods to launch the #FeedBCHW Challenge, which supports health care workers in underserved Black neighborhoods.

With the coronavirus putting a halt to both TV and film production, producers, directors and writers have rallied together to form It Takes Our Village, a fundraising initiative to aid the hundreds of thousands of crew members left unemployed because of the pandemic.

Apple continues to hand out second-season pickups to its crop of original scripted series. The latest to get a Season 2 renewal is drama Truth Be Told, starring and executive produced by Octavia Spencer. The series is created by Nichelle Tramble Spellman and is produced by Hello Sunshine, Chernin Entertainment and Endeavor Content. Truth Be Told was billed as a limited series but had been designed for a multi-season run. It will be a quasi-anthology in the vein of USA drama The Sinner and NBC comedy Trial & Error where there is a central protagonist(s) that carries over as each season focuses on a new story with new characters.

Apple continues to roll out new original series now that its premium streaming service, Apple TV+, is live, and coming up next is the legal drama “Truth Be Told,” starring Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul and Lizzy Caplan. IndieWire has the first look at the behind-the-scenes featurette of the limited series, which premieres December 6 and is based on the 2017 novel “Are You Sleeping” by Kathleen Barber. Spencer plays Poppy Parnell, a true-crime podcaster who is compelled to reopen the murder case that made her a national sensation and comes face to face with Warren Cave (Aaron Paul), the man she may have mistakenly helped to put behind bars for allegedly murdering the father of identical twins Josie and Lanie Burhman (both played by Lizzy Caplan). Publicly relitigating the murder case via her podcast, Parnell is aided by Markus Knox (Mekhi Phifer), a former detective, as she contends with nearly 20 years of family secrets, deceit, and the Bay Area’s powerful in order to get to the truth.

ABC has put in development Invisible, a thriller drama from Hand of God creator Ben Watkins, Rashad Raisani (The Gifted) and 20th Century Fox TV, where Raisani is under an overall deal. Written and executive produced by the Burn Notice duo of Watkins and Raisani, Invisible is described as a sexy, high-octane thriller about an undercover federal agent going through an identity crisis as she struggles to find balance between her roles as a wife and mother and her calling as a high risk law enforcement officer. 20th Century Fox is the studio.

Revelations Entertainment, the independent movie production company founded and run by Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary, has optioned Arthur T. Burton’s book "Black, Red & Deadly" for a TV series to be developed about legendary Oklahoma lawman Bass Reeves. Revelations will work on the project with Malcolm Spellman, Ben Watkins, Josef Sawyer and "Grey’s Anatomy" actor James Pickens Jr., according to Deadline. “When Morgan and I were editing the film he was directing 'Bopha!' back in the early ’90s, Bass Reeves’ story was brought to our attention. Morgan is so well read on U.S. and world history, yet both of us had never heard of him. We decided we had to figure out how to tell Bass’ story,” McCreary tells Deadline.

Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment has optioned Arthur T. Burton’s book Black, Red & Deadly for a TV series that they’ll develop about 19th century Arkansas slave-turned U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves. Revelations will work on the project with Malcolm Spellman, Ben Watkins, Josef Sawyer and Grey’s Anatomy actor James Pickens Jr.

Hulu's Wu-Tang: An American Saga catapults viewers into a head-spinning world of drugs, neighborhood wars, and hip-hop without any explanations or introductions. This then gives way to a cinematic opening sequence that dramatically distinguishes it from its talking head documentary companion piece, Showtime's four-part series Of Mics and Men, that premiered in tandem with the 25th anniversary of Wu-Tang's seminal record 36 Chambers earlier this year. Set between Staten Island's warring neighborhoods Park Hill (aka Killer Hill) and Stapleton, the gritty new series, which recently debuted its first three episodes on the streaming service, follows a ragtag group of New York artists who eventually form one of the most influential music groups of all time: Wu-Tang Clan.

Heather Taylor interviews showrunner Ben Watkins, writer on USA Network’s Burn Notice, and creator of Hand of God for Amazon Originals, about breaking into television, advice on thriving in a writers' room, and more! Continuing our Running the Show series featuring interviews of showrunners, we spoke with the multi-hyphenate Ben Watkins at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference. Ben Watkins is a writer/filmmaker/actor from Berkeley, California. He started his career as an actor, playing Dr. Wesley Carter on The Young and the Restless.

Hand of God creator Ben Watkins has signed with WME for representation in all areas. He was previously with CAA. Watkins most recently created and served as showrunner of Hand of God, which ran for two seasons on Amazon. Through his recently launched banner Blue Monday Productions, Watkins and his producing partner Eli Dansky, have projects in active development for FX (Trainhoppers) and USA (Roar). Up next, Watkins will executive produce Apple’s anticipated upcoming series Are You Sleeping, starring Octavia Spencer, Lizzy Caplan and Aaron Paul.