'Nancy Wu Done It': Amazon Developing Comedy About A YA Mystery Writer Who Gets Pulled Into One Of Her Own Stories
Movies or TV shows in which creators are unwittingly sucked into their own stories have become a common trope. But it's rare when one of those projects hails from an Asian-American perspective, and such is the case with Nancy Wu Done It, a new comedy series that Amazon recently purchased in a bidding war.
The comedy, which is described as Pleasantville meets Nancy Drew, will center on a young adult Asian-American writer who's sucked into her own book and must solve a mystery. Actress Jessica Henwick (Iron Fist, Game of Thrones) is co-writing the script with Kai Yu Wu, whose credits include NBC's Hannibal and The CW's The Flash.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news about Amazon acquiring Nancy Wu Done It, which is now in development. The outlet's more detailed plot synopsis says the show is about "a frustrated Asian-American YA novelist who suddenly finds herself transported to one of her own books and must work with the titular character she created — and now hates — to solve an unfinished mystery."
Generally speaking, there's lots of precedent for stories like these. A literal example would be something like the 1992 movie Cool World, in which Gabriel Byrne plays an artist who finds himself inside a comic world he supposedly created. A less literal example? Robert Zemeckis's action romance adventure Romancing the Stone, which sees a romance novelist get caught up in a real-world plot that seems as if it could be the basis for one of her books. Nancy Wu Done It sounds like it's sticking with the literal route, which is the riskier of the two options, but again, the Asian-American perspective should provide some freshness to what could otherwise be seen as a slightly played-out idea. (THR reporter Lesley Goldberg says the eventual star of this show will also be Asian-American.) And frankly, you've just gotta love anything that puts a "whodunit" pun directly into the title of a mystery comedy series.
Kai Yu Wu, who is currently co-executive producing Amazon's adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's Paper Girls, will write this show alongside Henwick (who appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens). The new show will be a co-production between Amazon and Vertigo, and will be executive produced by Vertigo's Roy Lee and Miri Yoon as well as Wu and Henwick. Henwick has written a couple of short films, and Wu, who created The Ghost Bride for Netflix, wrote and directed a short called The One Who Got Away a couple of years ago which actually starred Henwick: