Get ready for Love in the Time of Corona, an upcoming Freeform miniseries joining the glut of coronavirus-inspired movies and shows already flooding an industry that is still trying to sort out how to work through a pandemic. Freeform announced the new series Monday, revealing that the four-episode romantic drama will star and be executive produced by Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. and The Affair star Nicolette Robinson. As the title suggests, the series will feature the interwoven stories of people searching for love in the midst of the global pandemic. Production, which will include remote work conducted in talents’ homes, per TVLine, begins Monday.
Love in the Time of Corona isn’t the only coronavirus-themed project to grab headlines in the last few days. It was also recently announced that Charles Randolph, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Bombshell and The Big Short, is penning a screenplay for SK Global that will revolve around the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. The film, currently being referred to as the Untitled Wuhan Project, will be filmed in China and will star Chinese talent. Randolph is set to direct.
“The deeper we dig, the richer the story of Wuhan becomes,” Randolph said in a statement, per Deadline. “It’s one thing to fight a monster. It’s another thing to fight a monster in the dark.”
In a similar political vein, The Trip filmmaker Michael Winterbottom is set to cowrite and direct a coronavirus-themed series about British prime minister Boris Johnson’s response to the outbreak. Johnson, who caught the virus in April and spent three nights in intensive care, has been heavily criticized for the hypocritical way he handled the virus, which lead to thousands of deaths across the U.K.
It’s unclear when production will begin on the project since the world of traditional film and TV production is still being sorted out. However, that isn’t stopping Michael Bay, who is producing the pandemic thriller Songbird—which will begin production in Los Angeles, according to Deadline. How, exactly, is this going to happen in spite of the California lockdown and the lack of firm safety protocols? That’s still a bit murky, but the outlet reports that all the pertinent guilds have apparently given the film’s team a thumbs-up for production, potentially making Songbird the first film to shoot in Los Angeles in the midst of the pandemic. Adam Mason will direct the project, a dystopian look at the world set two years in the future as the outbreak continues on, with the virus mutating and become more dangerous. (Knock on all the wood you can after reading that sentence, thanks!)
Also pushing ahead to production? Jenji Kohan’s Social Distance, a Netflix series that was announced in April and will be shot entirely remotely. Perhaps the title gave it away, but the series will be a quarantine-themed anthology created, produced, and directed by several Orange Is the New Black alums. Considering how quickly it was announced, Social Distance might be the first major project to tackle the pandemic amid the pandemic, but now it’s got a few competitors jockeying for that top spot.
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