Kerry Washington has found her next project with the Netflix adaptation of Diane Cardwell’s memoir Rockaway: Surfing Headlong Into a New Life. And the title is interestingly accurate as the film tells the story of the Cardwell’s own reinvention as she discovered the world of surfing.
Washington will star in and produce Rockaway which centers on Manhattan-based journalist who unexpectedly discovers the transcendent power of surfing while on a routine assignment, and finds herself running from the comfortable life she’s always known toward a life of romance and self-discovery in eclectic Rockaway Beach.
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Nichelle Tramble Spellman— who is behind AppleTV+’s Truth Be Told— will adapt the screenplay.
Liza Chasin will produce via her 3dot Productions under a first-look deal with the streamer. Washington and Pilar Savone will produce for Simpson Street, along with Todd Shuster for Aevitas Entertainment. Cardwell and Margaret Chernin will executive produce.
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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published Rockaway: Surfing Headlong into a New Life last year, with Outside Magazine naming it as one of the Best Adventure Travel Books of the Year. NAACP Image Award winner Nichelle Tramble Spellman (Truth Be Told) is scripting the adaptation, which is a co-production between Liza Chasin’s 3dot Productions, Kerry Washington’s Simpson Street, and Aevitas Entertainment.
Rockaway will be Washington’s fourth project with the streamer. In the past, for the streamer, she’s starred in The Prom, American Son, and up next, Washington stars in Netflix’s upcoming movie The School for Good and Evil.