Mad Men and The Audacity writer and producer Semi Chellas has landed her next series project at Netflix.
The streamer has won a bidding war for The Long Now, a thriller created by Chellas about a man racing time to solve his own murder. Netflix will develop the project as an ongoing series, with Chellas as showrunner. She’ll executive produce with Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan of Aggregate Films, which has a first-look deal at Netflix.
The description for The Long Now reads, “A man has seven hours to solve his own murder with the reluctant help of his estranged ex. A propulsive thriller that explores the value of time and asks, What would you do if you had one day to live?”
Chellas is a three-time Emmy nominee for best writing for a drama series on Mad Men and shared in the show’s best drama series nods from 2013-15. She won two Writers Guild of America Awards for her Mad Men work as well, one individual — for the season five episode “The Other Woman” (co-written with creator Matthew Weiner) — and one as part of the staff’s series win for the final season.
Chellas is currently a writer and executive producer on AMC’s Silicon Valley satire The Audacity, which has been renewed for a second season. Her credits also include The Romanoffs, Rookie Blue and feature films American Woman and Ophelia. Chellas is repped by UTA, Untitled and Hansen Jacobson.
Bateman and Costigan’s Aggregate Films has a long-standing partnership with Netflix, going back to Ozark. The company has also produced Black Rabbit and the movies Hit Man and Your Place or Mine for Netflix, as well as the upcoming Cackling of the Dodos, which Bateman is directing.
