Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman Set ‘Kavalier and Clay’ Series at Showtime, Overall Deal With CBS

By Will Thorne

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – An adaptation of Michael Chabon’s acclaimed novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” has been given a series commitment at Showtime.

The series comes as part of a multi-year overall production pact which Chabon and his producing partner Ayelet Waldman have inked with CBS TV Studios. Under the agreement, CBS will have the exclusive rights to produce TV content created and developed by the husband-and-wife team across all platforms.

Chabon and Waldman will serve as executive producers and showrunners on the “Kavalier and Clay” series. The story of “Kavalier and Clay” is described as an epic tale of love, war and the birth of America’s comic book superhero obsession in big-band-era New York City. Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman are also attached to the project as executive producers. The series hails from Paramount Television and CBS Television Studios.

Chabon currently serves as an executive producer on the forthcoming CBS All Access series “Star Trek: Picard,” and he will remain with the series until he transitions to showrun “Kavalier and Clay” sometime in 2020, per CBS.

“Ayelet and Michael are two of America’s pre-eminent writers,” said David Stapf, president of . “From award-winning novels and non-fiction to their television and film collaborations, they have a remarkable body of work. We’re thrilled to have them on our incredibly talented roster.”

The duo have several other projects coming down the pipeline, including another series at based on Waldman’s book “A Really Good Day” about microdosing with LSD, which is set to star “Veep” alumna Anna Chlumsky. Peter Berg, Michael Lombardo and Elizabeth Rogers are executive producing the series via Film44.

Additional projects include “Behind You” from author Jacqueline Woodson which is set up at Hulu, “The Heavens,” inspired by the bestselling novel, and “Ghost Ship,” the tragic story of the Oakland, Calif. art collective that caught fire, with 36 fatalities.

“The team at CBS Studios is the best we’ve ever worked with,” said Waldman and Chabon. “We’re looking forward with so much excitement to this next phase of our collaboration.”