The All-American boy from an All-American town of fewer than 300 people has found his two-step at Paramount+. Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water) and the streamer genuinely seem to be a match made in heaven. On February 15th, through a company press release, it was announced Zoe Saldaña (Guardians of the Galaxy) will star in and executive produce the upcoming Paramount+ drama series from Sheridan, Lioness, about a real-life CIA program.
Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman (The Hours), with her production company, Blossom Films, will join Lioness as an executive producer. Kidman’s Blossom Films was attached to HBO’s Big Little Lies, which was nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards over the course of its run from 2017 to 2019, winning eight. The series will be produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios and is set to begin production in June 2022 with Tom Brady (NOS4A2) at the helm as executive producer and showrunner.
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“I am a huge fan of Taylor Sheridan’s work and am honored to help him tell his next amazing story with Lioness,” said Brady. “Taylor has created an epic, gripping, global spy thriller centered on a group of complex, strong women, and I can’t imagine anyone better to help bring these characters to life than fellow executive producers Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña.”
Sheridan began his career in acting, appearing in recurring roles on TV series like Veronica Mars and Sons of Anarchy. He made the transition into writing in 2015 with Sicario, and considers 2017’s Wind River, starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, his directorial debut. In the same year, Yellowstone starring Keving Costner debuted on the Paramount Network, which lead to a spin-off, 1883. Sheridan is also the creator, writer, director, and producer of the crime thriller Mayor Of Kingstown, led by Renner and Dianne Wiest, which was recently picked up for season two.
Lioness Is Based on Real-Life CIA Program
Lioness the Film
Lioness is based on a real-life military program (previously, there was a documentary based on the specialized group of women). Dubbed “Team Lioness” during the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a group of women soldiers went out on patrols with both Army and Marine Infantrymen despite official policy barring the armed services from assigning women to direct ground combat, regardless of how well they do under fire. For talented women to get around these barriers, they were temporarily “attached” to a ground unit or sent in a support role, rather than an official combat role. Sometimes military personnel in Female Engagement Teams, which grew out of the Lioness teams, are also sent in to gather intelligence in “specialized gender-suited tasks.”
“Lioness is based on an incredible, largely unknown program between the CIA and special forces, where U.S. female soldiers would infiltrate the local community and gather intelligence,” said David C. Glasser, CEO of 101 Studios. “Taylor has crafted an intense and gripping story within this uncharted world, and we are honored that it will be brought to life on Paramount+ through the acting and producing talents of Zoe Saldaña alongside executive producers Nicole Kidman and showrunner Tom Brady.”
The Lioness series will follow a Marine recruited to befriend a terrorist’s daughter to bring the organization down from within. According to the press release, “Saldaña plays Joe, a strong-willed, hard-nosed, station chief of the CIA’s Lioness program, tasked with training, managing, and leading her female undercover operatives working to assassinate the world’s most dangerous terrorists.”
