In a major TV power play, Sterling K. Brown, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Winston Duke are in talks to star in The Trees, a limited series based on Percival Everett’s acclaimed 2022 novel.
Everett’s The Trees is a searing and fast-paced thriller that unflinchingly tackles racism and police violence. It opens in Money, Mississippi, with a series of violent murders. But it’s not just the brutality of the crimes that catches attention—it’s the fact that a second body is found at every scene, resembling none other than Emmett Till.
Two detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (believed to be played by Brown and Duke) arrive to investigate and encounter resistance from the local authorities and a deeply racist community. What begins as a local investigation quickly reveals a national pattern of retribution, as similar killings begin popping up across the country. As the body count rises, the detectives are drawn into the world of a local root doctor who has chronicled every lynching in America—a reckoning decades in the making.
Marcus Gardley (The Chi, The Color Purple) is adapting the novel for television and will executive produce alongside Brown and Abby Victor (Indian Meadows), Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and Katie Zucker (Mad Massive Entertainment), and Everett himself. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is producing.
The project is already sparking a bidding war—and for good reason.
The series reunites Brown and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, who previously worked together on Washington Black, now streaming on Hulu.
Brown, an Oscar nominee (American Fiction) and three-time Emmy winner, is currently double-nominated for his latest Hulu series Paradise. Randolph, fresh off her Oscar win for The Holdovers, has been on a streak—from Dolemite Is My Name to Only Murders in the Building. She has Eternity and The Gallerist on deck.
Winston Duke continues to dominate both blockbusters and indies. Best known as M’Baku in the Black Panther franchise, Duke has also starred in Us, Spencer Confidential, The Fall Guy, and Nine Days, which he also executive produced.
Everett’s The Trees was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and took home the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. With this team and source material, The Trees is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated series on the horizon.