As Inventing Anna continues to rank in the top 10 on Netflix, Shondaland has unveiled another original series written by the streaming giant.
Shonda Rhimes and longtime Shondaland partner Betsy Beers will executive produce the direct-to-series detective drama The Residence. The drama will use Kate Anderson Brower’s The Residence: The Inside of the White House as a starting point for a new murder mystery.
The eight-episode drama is directed by showrunner and executive producer Paul William Davies, a Shondaland veteran whose credits include ABC’s Scandal and the creation of For the People (the latter of which starred Bridgerton’s favorite Réger-Jean Page).
Here is the official logline for The Residence from Netflix: “132 rooms. 157 suspects. One corpse. One wildly eccentric detective. One failed state dinner. The Residence is a detective story set on the top, bottom and back floors of the White House, among the ragtag staff of the world’s most famous mansion.”
The residency will be produced in-house at Netflix as part of an overall Shondaland deal as well as Davis’ multi-year deal with the streamer. Davis, who has a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley, previously worked as a law clerk for a federal judge in Los Angeles before practicing law for more than a decade.
The residency continues Rhimes’ love of exploring the political world following her love of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and her ABC political soap Scandal, which, in addition to Grey’s Anatomy, helped establish the prolific producer as a global brand. The Shondaland Netflix list includes Bridgerton and the prequel written by Rhimes and Inventing Anna, as well as the anthology Notes on Love. The development of The Residence was first announced in July 2018 when Rhimes set her original plan for Netflix. Netflix and Shondaland have acquired the rights to Brouwer’s non-fiction book.
A release date for The Residence has not yet been set.
Rhimes is represented by ICM Partners. Davis works for ICM Partners and Hansen Jacobson.