Amazon orders Julia Roberts drama Homecoming

Subscription VOD service Amazon Prime Video has handed a two-season order to Homecoming, a drama based on a popular podcast that will star Julia Roberts.

The half-hour drama is based on a Gimlet Media podcast of the same name that launched in November 2016 to critical acclaim.

Universal Cable Productions and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail are leading the project, which brought in Pretty Woman star Roberts in June through her RedOm production company.

Mr. Robot producer Anonymous Content is also on board the series, along with podcast producer Gimlet, from whom Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg are writing. Esmail is directing and executive producing, alongside Roberts and a number of other high profile executives.

The podcast is a psychological drama about a caseworker at a secret government facility and a soldier trying to rejoin civilian life. Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer are among the cast. It is presented in a series of phonecalls, therapy sessions and overheard conversations.

Roberts will play Keener’s lead character in the TV adaptation, which will form part of Amazon’s latest originals slate. It will have global distribution on the Amazon Prime Video service.

A second season of the podcast launched yesterday.

Gimlet is behind ABC’s new season comedy Alex, Inc., while Amazon already has international rights to Esmail’s breakout drama, Mr. Robot.

Roberts, meanwhile, has never before starred in a TV series, though she has appeared in a HBO telemovie and has Today Will Be Different in the works with the same network. She is signed on to star in and executive produce that limited series effort.