Apple has scooped up the rights to create a new TV series based on Min Jin Lee’s bestselling 2017 novel “Pachinko,” according to Variety.
Here’s the summary of the book, a National Book Award Finalist: “In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife.”
Soo Hugh will write and executive produce the series in addition to serving as showrunner, with Min Jin Lee also executive producing. Hugh was previously the showrunner on Season 1 of the AMC series “The Terror.” She also developed the ABC series “The Whispers.” Her other TV credits include “Under the Dome,” “The Killing,” and “The River.”
This will be Apple’s 21st scripted series. Upcoming original programming titles include “Amazing Stores,” “Are You Sleeping,” “Home,” “Little America,” “See,” “Swagger,” an untitled Damien Chazelle drama, an untitled Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Anniston dreamed, “Dickinson” (a half-hour comedy starring Hailee Stenifeld), an untitled Ronald D. Moore drama, an untitled M. Night Shyamalan thriller series, a TV series adaption of “Foundation,” the Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy, and the half-hour dramedy “Little Voices” from producers J.J. Abrams and Sara Bareilles, “Little America” from the screenwriters (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani) of “The Big Sick” and producer/writer Lee Eisenberg, a drama series about pre-teen investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak, a TV series based on the “Time Bandits” movie, an English-language adaptation of the French short-form series Canal+, and “See,” a world-building drama set in the future.
