EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Netflix has landed Next Door, a TV series from Love Life creator Sam Boyd and A24, which has Tessa Thompson (His & Hers) attached to star and produce. The project has been put on fast-track development with a writers’ room currently being staffed, we hear.
Next Door is produced by Joe Hipps’ A24-based Cut To. A24 originally acquired Boyd’s spec script on behalf of Cut To last year in a nine-way studio bidding war, sources say. As the indie studio regularly does, it developed the project internally and attached Thompson before taking it out.
Plot details are under wraps, but we hear Next Door is a dark comedic thriller about marriage and paranoia in the modern American suburbs, inspired by movies in the vein of Little Children and Rear Window.
Little Children is the 2006 film from Todd Phillips, based on the Tom Perrotta novel released the same year. Kate Winslet stars as an unhappy housewife who has an affair with her married neighbor (Patrick Wilson).
Rear Window is a 1954 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story “It Had to Be Murder.” The film centers on Jeff (James Stewart), who, while spying on his neighbors, believes he witnessed the murder of the wife (Irene Winston) at the hands of her husband (Raymond Burr).
Boyd is writer, director, showrunner and executive producer for Next Door. Thompson will executive produce with Kishori Rajan under their banner, Viva Maude, alongside Hipps of Cut To.
Netflix and A24 declined to comment.
Boyd is best known for creating, co-showrunning, directing, and executive producing the HBO Max anthology series Love Life, whose two seasons starred Anna Kendrick and William Jackson Harper, respectively. He also directed episodes of the Hulu series Tell Me Lies and the Peacock feature Genie starring Melissa McCarthy. Boyd made his feature directorial debut with the romantic dramedy In a Relationship, which he also wrote and produced. He is repped by UTA, Untitled, and Hansen Jacobson Teller.
Thompson recently earned a Golden Globe nomination for starring in the film Hedda, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Plan B for Amazon MGM. She currently stars in and executive produced the breakout Netflix series His & Hers. Additional credits include Thor: Ragnarok, the Creed franchise, Passing, Sorry to Bother You, and Westworld.
On the producing front, Thompson also produced, via her production banner Viva Maude, Hedda as well as the upcoming film Is God Is for Amazon MGM and the documentary Seeds, which premiered at Sundance last month. She is repped by CAA, Untitled, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Through Hipps’ A24 deal, Cut To last fall sold Discretion, starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning, to Paramount+, and Trigger Point, headlined by Joel Edgerton, to Netflix — both with straight-to-series orders.