With his “American Crime” anthology series performing well for ABC, and a feature documentary on the 1992 Los Angeles riots as well as his maligned Showtime period drama-thriller “Guerrilla,” both premiering later this month, writer/director/producer John Ridley continues to be a creative whose work is in demand. There’s also the scripting he did for MGM’s remake of the classic sword-and-sandals epic “Ben-Hur;” and he’s developing a new Marvel series also for ABC, which has been described as a “reinvention” of an existing Marvel superhero character, although no word on who that character is, as details are being kept under wraps; and he sold a crime drama pilot also to ABC titled “Presence,” which will follow a former Army Counter Insurgency Operative named Presence Foster, beginning a new career as a private investigator in Los Angeles.

It should be noted that Ridley inked an overall deal with ABC a couple of years ago that will see the writer/director/producer develop new projects for the studio.

We can add this to his growing list of upcoming projects as well.

As was reported on this blog in 2015, Ridley paired up with producer Michael McDonald to option author Kim Reid’s award-winning 2007 book “No Place Safe: A Family Memoir,” for ABC Studios to produce. Details on how it would be adapted (as a TV series, or film) wasn’t public information at the time, but we learned today that Ridley’s “American Crime” co-star Regina King is reuniting with him for what will be a drama series based on Reid’s memoir. Although this one has been picked up by FX network.

King will both star in the series and co-produce.

Winner of the Colorado Book Award in Creative Nonfiction, here’s a summary of the literary work from Booklist: “Part mystery thriller, part coming-of-age story, and part civil-rights history, this gripping memoir is set at the time of the horrific Atlanta child murders and told through the eyes of a young African American teen whose mom is a cop on the task force searching for the serial killer. Just after the first two bodies are found in 1979, Kim, 13, enters a white private school in the suburbs, far from her inner-city neighborhood. Over the next two years, a total of 29 black boys are found dead. Is the killer a Klansman type? Could he be a black man? The racism at school is ugly. No one there cares about the murdered inner-city kids. So why does Kim stay in the fancy school? Is she playing white? Is she running for safety? As the climax builds, and her mom brings home more and more details of the murder investigation, Kim’s personal conflicts are as intense for her as the terror outside.”

We assume King will play the mother, based on the above synopsis.

Wendy Calhoun is adapting the book and also executive producing with Ridley and McDonald, as well as Regina and her sister Reina King who also have a development deal with ABC Studios via their Royal Ties production shingle.

This is the kind of riveting project that has Emmy awards written all over it, which both King and Ridley aren’t strangers to (Ridley’s been nominated 3 times for “American Crime” and King has been nominated twice and won both times).

Further casting news will be announced later.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Reid’s “No Place Safe: A Family Memoir,” click here.

Deadline was first to report the news of Regina King’s attachment today.

No Place Safe: A Family Memoir

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