EXCLUSIVE: Krysten Ritter has teamed up with writer-producer Steve Yockey (The Flight Attendant, Dead Boy Detectives) and Berlanti Productions for Retreat, a series adaptation of her novel by the same name. Ritter is executive producing with the intention to star in the project, which just hit the marketplace.
It comes from Warner Bros. Television where Yockey and Berlanti Productions are under overall deals. The studio had optioned Ritter’s book for Yockey to adapt and Berlanti Productions to produce.
Retreat is an ongoing hourlong darkly comedic thriller featuring Liz Dawson (the role intended for Ritter) — a chameleon-like grifter who is always in control — until she’s cornered into assuming the identity of a wealthy dead woman in Punta Mita, Mexico. Suddenly, Liz finds herself in the middle of a sun-bleached Hitchcockian mystery, desperate to keep up her act. And then people start dying.
The project draws parallels to another darkly comedic thriller with a female lead based on a bestselling novel by a female author, HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, which also was created by Yockey and produced by Berlanti Prods. for Warner Bros. TV.
Ritter and Yockey executive produce Retreat with Berlanti Prods’ Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Leigh London Redman.
Coming off Dexter: Resurrection, in which she appeared opposite Michael C. Hall, Peter Dinklage, and Uma Thurman, Ritter will next reprise her role as Jessica Jones in Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again for Disney+. Her recent credits also include David E. Kelley’s limited series Love & Death for HBO Max and Netflix’s fantasy film Nightbooks. The bestselling Retreat, published in 2025, is Ritter’s second novel following the 2017 psychological thriller Bonfire.
In addition to The Flight Attendant, which earned Yockey Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, he was the creator and showrunner of Berlanti Prods./Warner Bros. TV’s Netflix series Dead Boy Detectives, based on the Vertigo/DC Comics comic books.
Berlanti Prods. has the live-action Scooby-Doo series for Netflix, pilots How To Survive Without Me at HBO Max and Foster Dade at Hulu and series Stillwater in the works at Amazon.
Ritter is repped by CAA, Kyle Luker at Industry Entertainment, Steve Caserta at Principal Entertainment, and Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver & Thompson. Yockey is repped by CAA, Wetdog Entertainment, and Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson & Christopher.