COYOTE: Paramount Network Launches New Scripted Border Drama Starring Michael Chiklis
It’s difficult to not invoke the least bit of correlative timing for Paramount Network’s newest greenlit series Coyote, premiering in 2020. Emmy Award-winning actor Michael Chiklis (The Commish) is set to star in the new scripted drama which comes at a lately grim, politically tumultuous time in America encompassing the national dialogue surrounding the immigration polices of the current administration.
David Graziano (American Gods, Southland) will serve as showrunner and co-write this particular endeavor which centers on Chiklis in the role Ben Clemens, a former border patrol agent who after 32 years in the field, is forced to work for the very people he spent his career trying to keep out of America. Now exposed to life on the other side of the wall, Ben will start to question his black and white views of the world, challenging his ideology and his loyalties.
I’m actually keen on this series as to how it might actually reflect on the topic through the perspective of Chiklis’s Ben Clemens character going forward, and Paramount Network is issuing ten episodes that could very well achieve that. Coyote hails from MacLaren Entertainment, Dark Horse Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television with Emmy-winning exec producer Michelle MacLaren (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad) also directing the pilot and exec producing the series.
Chiklis will also exec produce the series next to screenwriters Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert (Mr. Woodcock) who will also write the series. Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg (The Umbrella Academy) will exec produce for Dark Horse along with Rebecca Hobbs of MacLaren Entertainment.
“David Graziano, our whole creative team, and I are excited to make a show with Paramount Network and Sony that will dramatize a conversation between Mexico and America,” said MacLaren. “I have wanted to work with Michael Chiklis for a long time and am thrilled he is playing such a complex character whose journey will expose multiple points of view on this relevant and complicated issue.”
“We’re honored to work with Michelle MacLaren, Michael Chiklis, David Graziano and the rest of the gifted creative team on Coyote,” said Keith Cox, President of Development, Paramount Network and TV Land. “The powerful, timely setting and complex characters are a perfect fit with the rest of our growing scripted slate. Coyote is befitting of the strong Paramount name.”
“We are incredibly excited to be working with this creative powerhouse of a team and beyond thrilled to have Michael Chiklis back in our SONY family,” said Jason Clodfelter, Co-President of Sony Pictures Television.
“While most of our shows and movies come from our own library, in Coyote, we found an original idea and character that were undeniable and attracted this incredible creative team,” said Mike Richardson, Dark Horse Entertainment’s President and Founder. “We are genuine fans of Michael Chiklis and Michelle MacLaren, and we couldn’t be more excited about this show.”
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