Paramount Television Studios has closed an exclusive overall deal with The Wheel of Time creator/showrunner Rafe Judkins to create, develop, and produce original scripted series for the studio. The pact at Paramount’s streaming-focused studio comes amid an effort by the new regime at sibling Paramount+ to find a platform-defining world-building genre series.

Paramount Television Studios President Matt Thunell highlighted Judkins’ experience in the area.

“I have long been a fan of Rafe’s extraordinary writing and producing and am grateful he chose Paramount as his new creative home,” Thunell said. “We are amazed by his ability to build immersive worlds, craft action-packed stories, and realize vibrant characters. We cannot wait to build with him.”

Thunell and his team pursued Judkins for the deal, which reunites the writer-producer with Chris Parnell who is leading genre development for Paramount+ under Head of Originals Jane Wiseman. As Sony Pictures Television Co-President, Parnell developed The Wheel of Time, calling Judkins “a brilliant visionary” in the 2018 announcement of the project’s series order by Prime Video. The Wheel of Time, based on the novels by Robert Jordan and co-author Brandon Sanderson, ran for three seasons.

“Right now is a time to take risks and be ambitious in television with the kind of stories we tell and the way we tell them, no matter how big or small,” Judkins said. “That’s the kind of television I want to make, and I feel lucky to have found partners at Paramount who are also looking to expand, take risks, and create something new. I’m honored and excited to be in at the ground floor for what Matt and his team are building.”

Disney’s “Aquamarine” sequel series is tapping into early 2000s nostalgia in bringing back Jake McDorman to reprise his role as lifeguard heartthrob Raymond.

The sequel series has also found its half-mermaid lead in Kenzi Richardson. She will star as Coral, the daughter of Aquamarine and Raymond. The former lifeguard now raises Coral as a single dad. It is unclear where Aquamarine is in the sequel 20 years later.

Emma Roberts, who starred in the 2006 film, will executive produce and guest star as her original character Claire Brown in the series. The series has also found a new group of series regulars adding Briella Guiza, Theodore Dalton and Annika Reese to the Disney series.

Disney+ ordered a pilot for the sequel series in June. “The Bold Type” creator Sarah Watson will write the pilot and will serve as an executive producer alongside Susan Cartsonis, who served as a producer for “Aquamarine.” “Aquamarine” director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum is attached to return as director and EP.

The official logline for the pilot is as follows: “When teenaged Coral moves to a dreamy seaside town, she begins unraveling the truth behind her mother’s disappearance—and discovers her mother was a mermaid, awakening magical powers in Coral just as secrets beneath the waves threaten to surface.”

In the reboot, Raymond is reportedly struggling to navigate Coral’s “growing independence while still mourning the loss of Aquamarine.” Richardson will play Coral, the thoughtful and artistic teenager who discovers she is half mermaid and must navigate adolescence, identity, and “the absence of the mother she never knew.”

More to come…