Paramount+ has made its first big series pickup under its new leadership, landing a legal thriller called Discretion with Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning set to star and executive produce.
The streamer won a bidding war for the project, which comes from A24 and has only been on the market for a few weeks, with a straight-to-series order. The pickup is the first major green light for new Paramount streaming boss Cindy Holland, the former Netflix executive who joined the company after the Skydance merger closed, and Paramount+ head of originals Jane Wiseman.
Discretion is based on a short story by best-selling author Chandler Baker, who will also write the adaptation. The logline reads, “A summer associate, Lenny (Fanning), at a prestigious Dallas law firm uncovers a web of NDAs masking a dark truth. When she realizes she signed the same agreement, her discoveries put her in the crosshairs of the firm’s most powerful female partner, Sharon (Kidman) — upending their mentor-protégé dynamic and raising the question: Who gets to keep secrets, and at what cost?” The eight-episode season is set to begin production next year.
Baker and Susannah Grant (Unbelievable, Erin Brockovich) are executive producing Discretion with Elle Fanning, Dakota Fanning and Brittany Kahan Ward of Lewellen Pictures; Kidman and Per Saari for Blossom Films; Jordan Cerf; and Joe Hipps, via his A24-based Cut to company.
The show is a reunion for Kidman, Fanning and A24, who are also behind the upcoming Apple TV+ series Margo’s Got Money Troubles. It’s also something of a full-circle moment for Holland and Hipps, who was an executive at MRC when it sold House of Cards to Netflix to kickstart that company’s original series slate.
Deadline first reported the news.
