EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is developing an English-language adaptation of one of its biggest international formats, the hit South Korean series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, from creator Leila Gerstein, sources tell Deadline.
Reps for Netflix declined to comment. But we hear that KristieAnne Reed will produce for Jerry Bruckheimer Television. Sources said Gerstein would also be credited as writer and executive producer.
Premiering on Netflix and on ENA in South Korea in June 2022, Extraordinary Attorney Woo starred Park Eun-bin as Woo Young-woo, a rookie attorney with autism spectrum disorder and a remarkable photographic memory, who achieves success at a major law firm in Seoul given her legal acumen and unique perspective on her work, despite initial skepticism from her colleagues.
Teaming writer Moon Ji-won and director Yoo In-sik, the series was a major success domestically, becoming the eighth highest-rated drama in Korean cable television history, and broke out as a phenomenon internationally, topping Netflix’s global non-English language charts for six weeks, with hundreds of millions of hours viewed. A comp for the show would be medical drama The Good Doctor, which achieved popularity in South Korea before being adapted into a hit series in the States.
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Prior to working on Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Gerstein developed and created multiple shows, including Hart of Dixie, which ran for four seasons on The CW, and Saint X, based on the book of the same name, for Hulu. She got her start working on The O.C. and Gossip Girl and has since worked on shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, for which she won an Emmy and a Golden Globe, as well as Mrs. America and Looking for Alaska.
Known for its work on American Gigolo, Lucifer, The Amazing Race, the CSI franchise and more, Jerry Bruckheimer Television is also currently working on Fire Country, which heads into its fourth season on CBS in October, among other projects.
Gerstein is repped by WME, Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment, and Yorn Levine.