French screenwriter Nicolas Jean, who was the co-creator of international hit series HPI which was then adapted in the U.S. as the Kaitlin Olson-starring show High Potential, has died at the age of 63.
French writers’ guild SACD announced he had died suddenly on September 29, without giving the cause of death, in a tribute on its Instagram and Facebook pages.
“Nicolas Jean entered the industry thirteen years ago and had a meteoric rise. Self-taught, with an atypical background that enriched his fictional stories, he quickly established himself as a talented and essential screenwriter on television,” wrote screenwriter and SACD administrator Florence Philipponnat in a heart-felt message.
“He had a gift for freely inventing original concepts, freeing himself from imposed constraints. And he knew how to intelligently surround himself with creative writers to develop them with him, because he was passionate about sharing and generosity.”
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Prior to HPI, Jean was a long-running writer on the South of France-set soap opera Tomorrow is Ours (Demain nous appartient), while other key credits include serial killer thriller mini-series The Mantis (2017), prison drama Impatients (2018) and crime mystery Promethea (2022).
He is best known at home and internationally for HPI, starring Audrey Fleurot as a struggling single mother of three with “high intellectual potential” who is a hired by the serious crime squad as a consultant when her innate detective skills come to light.
The show, which debuted in Belgium on La Une and then France on TF1 in 2021, sold to more than 90 countries including the U.S. where it was acquired by Hulu, and sparked a U.S. version created by Drew Goddard for ABC.
Jean is cited as a co-creator on the French show alongside Alice Chegaray-Breugnot and Stéphane Carrié, but Philipponnat noted that he came up with the original idea.
“He explained that the idea came to him from one of his sons who had been diagnosed with HPI,” she wrote. “He adored his children and often spoke to us about them.”
She recounted how Jean, long after his success with HPI, had continued to contribute to the story arcs of Tomorrow is Ours, which had given him one of his first jobs as a screenwriter.
“He was a man of great loyalty as well as a workaholic, never short of ideas, a mind in perpetual turmoil, sparing no effort,” she wrote.