Fox Developing ‘Billionaire Apocalypse’ From ‘Morning Show’ Creator Jay Carson; Hugh Jackman Among EPs

Fox said late Sunday night that it is developing a drama series tentatively titled Billionaire Apocalypse that hails from The Morning Show creator Jay Carson and counts Hugh Jackman among its executive producers.

The drama, from Fox Entertainment Studios for the Fox network, is written and executive produced by Carson, creator and writer of Apple+’s Emmy-nominated Morning Show. Also serving as exec producers are Lawrence Bender (Flesh and Bone, Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Brown (Flesh and Bone, Trumbo).

The logline for the drama: “The richest man on the planet, 200 of his employees, and his family are forced to flee to his private island in the wake of a global financial collapse, where the employees and family members — who he’s treated as afterthoughts for decades — quickly realize he’s no longer rich and thus no longer in charge.”

The project, which has received a script commitment, is being distributed worldwide by Fox Entertainment Global. No cast is attached as of yet.

In addition to Morning Show, Carson’s credits include serving as a supervising producer on Netflix’s first series, the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated House of Cards. He is currently creating and writing multiple movies and TV shows, including an hourlong drama that stars Judith Light, a feature starring and directed by Josh Brolin and another project with Jackman. 

Before launching his career in Hollywood, Carson worked in government and politics, starting with Sen. Chuck Schumer’s first run for the U.S. Senate in 1998 and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate race, and also served as the press secretary for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. While working for Daschle, he was one of the roughly 20 people who contracted anthrax in the 2001 anthrax attacks on the Capitol. He also was President Bill Clinton’s communications director and Hillary Clinton’s press secretary on her first presidential campaign.

Bender has produced films that have yielded 37 Oscar noms in total, with nine wins, including Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards, Good Will Hunting and An Inconvenient Truth. Other film credits include Idris Elba-Regina King starrer The Harder They Fall, Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, Martin Scorsese’s Silence, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 and Reservoir Dogs, Brad Pitt-Julia Roberts starrer The Mexican, Anna and the King starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn. TV credits include A&E’s The Chicano Squad, CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, Netflix’s Emmy-winning Seven Seconds and Starz’s Golden Globe-nominated Flesh and Bone.

Brown has produced two dozen TV and feature projects, including Flesh and Bone, Seven Seconds, HBO’s Soul of the Game and the Oscar-nominated film Trumbo.