The Plot: Mahershala Ali to star in Jean Hanff Korelitz thriller for Hulu

Mahershala Ali is currently gearing up to play Blade in a Marvel movie that starts filming this summer – but along the way, he has also found the time to sign on to star in and executive produce a Hulu limited series adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel The Plot (pick up a copy HERE).

Collider reports that The Plot, a psychological thriller, will consist of eight episodes and tell the story of

a once-promising young novelist-turned-professor struggling to maintain his self-respect. When Jacob Finch Bonner takes the opportunity to rise to fame once more by stealing the work of a late student, his life is changed forever. When an anonymous message alerts him to the fact that someone knows what he’s done, there’s no telling what Jake will do to protect his secret.

If you want to know more, the description of Korelitz’s novel is much longer:

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written―let alone published―anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that―a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing” of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

Stephen King described the book as “insanely readable”.

Ali will be executive producing The Plot alongside Mimi Valdés and Amatus Karim Ali, through their production company Know Wonder. Layne Eskridge and Kristen Campo are also executive producing the show, while Abby Ajayi serves as showrunner.

This is the second time a Korelitz novel has been turned into a limited series; her novel You Should Have Known served as the basis of the HBO limited series The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.