In a competitive situation, Apple has given a straight-to-series order to a comedy series from Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Variety has learned exclusively.

Titled "The Afterparty," the series is described as a murder mystery comedy set at a high school reunion afterparty. Each of the eight episodes will feature a retelling of the same night told through a different character’s perspective, each with its own unique visual format and film genre to match the teller’s personality.

Miller created the series and will also serve as showrunner and executive producer. For more details, read the full Variety report.

On another front, Apple, Warner Bros, MGM, Lionsgate and Universal are among the studios in the mix for world rights on Emancipation. Bidding is above $75 million on the first major property at the Cannes Film Festival virtual market.

The film package will have Antoine Fuqua direct Will Smith in a Willam N. Collage-scripted action thriller about the harrowing escape of Peter, a runaway slave forced to outwit cold-blooded hunters and the unforgiving swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey North where he joined the Union Army.

At the heart, the film is an action thriller with a powerful emotional core that involves Peter’s death-defying journey to escape his captors. Using onions to mask his scent from pursuing bloodhounds, and his strength and smarts to survive running barefoot through the swamps for 10 days

Fuqua sparked to the script and felt he had to to it, as soon as he read it. He and Smith have been plotting and visualizing what the film would look like for some time now so they were able to paint a fully formed picture of the film to bidders who included Apple, MGM and Netflix. For more, read the full Deadline report.

Archive:Apple TV News