Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” is headed to the small screen as a 10-part series with the author acting as showrunner and executive producer alongside Taika Waititi, who will direct the pilot episode for Hulu.
“Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” actor Jimmy O. Yang is set to star.
Winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, “Interior Chinatown” tells the story of Willis Wu (Yang), an extra on a procedural cop show called “Black & White” who dreams of rising through the ranks to become a leading man. When he witnesses a crime, Willis begins to look deeper into a criminal web in Chinatown, uncovering secrets about the world and his family’s history in the process.
The Hulu drama from 20th Television will also be executive produced by Dan Lin, Lindsey Liberatore, and Elsie Choi for Rideback; Jeff Skoll and Miura Kite for Participant; and Garrett Basch for Dive.
Yang got his break in 2014 playing Jian Yang on HBO’s “Silicon Valley” and went on to appear in series like “Fresh Off The Boat” and “Space Force.” His recent credits include “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” Jo Koy’s “Easter Sunday,” and “Me Time” with Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg. Coming up for Yang are “The Silk Road Rally,” “Eighty for Brady” with Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Rita Moreno, and animated feature “The Monkey King.”
Academy Award-winner Waititi serves as writer and executive producer of Hulu’s “Reservation Dogs” and “What We Do in the Shadows.” The “Jojo Rabbit” and “Thor: Love and Thunder” writer-director has a number of projects in the works, including an untitled “Star Wars” film and soccer dramedy “Next Goal Wins.”
Yang is repped by Artists First, CAA and SRDA. Waititi is repped by CAA, Manage-ment, ID and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich & Gellman.
