Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Production, announced six new projects in development for Netflix Inc. (Photo: Reuters) Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company on Friday announced six new projects in development for Netflix Inc, including a love story with a supernatural twist and a young adult thriller.
The former president and first lady’s Higher Ground Productions will adapt British-Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West into a film, according to a statement from Netflix. The book tells the story of a young couple who find magical doors to transport them to other places and land in the middle of a global refugee crisis.
Other film projects include a science-fiction movie called Satellite, which will be produced with T Street, a production company run by Star Wars director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman. Another is Tenzing, the story of the Nepalese-Indian man who first reached the summit of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand.
The Young Wife is a feature film that follows a woman on the day of her wedding who feels out of sync as a storm approaches.
The company also is developing two TV series. Firekeeper’s Daughter is a thriller based on a young adult novel by Angeline Boulley about an 18-year-old Ojibwe tribe member who reluctantly goes undercover in a police investigation on her reservation.
The other series is a nature documentary about national parks.
Netflix said the projects will be released over the next few years but did not give exact release dates.
The Obamas signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix in 2018. Their earlier Netflix projects include American Factory, which won an Oscar in 2020 for best documentary.