Yahoo Movies Harrison Ford eyes his first major TV role with The Staircase
Harrison Ford hasn’t appeared in a scripted television role in more than 25 years and he hasn’t featured in a leading series regular role for the medium, either. This is all about to change.
The Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars icon is attached to star in the scripted series adaptation of The Staircase, EW has learned.
Ford will star in the new series from Annapurna Television as novelist Michael Peterson, and he’ll executive produce with Antonio Campos (The Sinner), who will write. Reps for Ford did not comment and reps for Campos did not respond to EW’s requests for comment.
The lifecycle of the original docuseries, which dove into Peterson’s trial, began in 2005 when the first eight episodes aired on the Sundance Channel. Peterson was the prime suspect in the death of his wife Kathleen Peterson. He claimed she fell down the stairs and hit her head, but police suspected he bludgeoned her to death.
Cue Ford shouting, “I did not kill my wife!”
French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade filmed additional episodes that aired in 2013 after Peterson was granted a new trial. Lestrade later updated the docuseries again, and the entire 13-episode arc is available to stream now on Netflix.
The project doesn’t currently have a network or streaming home but is being shopped around.
Ford last appeared on television in a scripted capacity on 1993’s The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, on which he played an adult version of Indy.
He was recently voiced a role in the animated movie The Secret Life of Pets 2, and appeared in Blade Runner 2049 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He’s set to appear in the fifth Indiana Jones movie and the live-action/animated hybrid adaptation of The Call of the Wild.
Variety was the first to report the news.
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