EXCLUSIVE: Julie Plec‘s My So-Called Company and Universal Television have acquired the rights to Regina Black’s debut novel The Art of Scandal.
The Art of Scandal tells the story of Rachel Abbott who, on the night of her husband Matt’s fortieth birthday, receives an explicit text from him that she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. Divorce is inevitable, and Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage empty handed.
Plec is attached as executive producer alongside Plec’s partner at MSCC, Emily Cummins. Black will serve as a consulting producer on the project.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting for a book like this to come around for years. Regina really knocked this out of the park, allowing me to indulge in my favorite kind of television: a sexy, smart, multi-generational, multi-cultural soap,” Plec said in a statement.
Here’s a synopsis for The Art of Scandal:
On the night of her husband Matt’s fortieth birthday, Rachel Abbott receives an explicit text from her husband that she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. Divorce is inevitable, and Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage empty handed.
Meanwhile, Matt, a rising star mayor with his eye on the White House, can’t afford a messy split in the middle of his reelection campaign. They strike a deal: Rachel gets one million dollars and their lavish house in the wealthy DC suburb of Oasis Springs, as long as she keeps playing the ideal Black trophy wife until the election.
Then Rachel meets Nathan Vasquez and their connection makes Rachel forget about being the perfect politician’s wife. As Rachel reawakens Nathan’s long-dormant artistic aspirations, their attraction becomes impossible to resist. But secrets are hard to keep in a town like Oasis Springs, and Nathan has a few of his own. With the risk of scandal looming and their hearts on the line, they’ll have to decide whether the possibility of losing everything is worth taking a chance on love.
Black is a former civil litigator and current law school administrator, who has always been passionate about the depiction of Black women in popular culture. She is repped by UTA and Dystel Goderich & Bourret.
Plec and her production banner, My So-Called Company, are under an overall deal at Universal Television. Her current projects under the deal include We Were Liars, which was picked up to series at Prime Video, with Plec as co-creator, writer and executive producer. She is also the executive producer of Girls on the Bus for Max. She is repped by Management 360 and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson McGinnis Ryan.
USG’s Creative Acquisitions and IP Management team, led by Jordan Moblo, was helped secure the rights to the novel. UTA brokered the deal.