Kevin Williamson is keeping busy like it’s 1998! Best known for writing Scream, Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Faculty, producing Halloween H20 (while doing uncredited work on the script), and creating Dawson’s Creek, Williamson is currently gearing up to direct his second feature film, Scream 7. (His first was the thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle, released in 1999.) Back in February, we heard that he and his producer banner, Outerbanks Entertainment, were developing four major projects as part of an overall deal with Universal Television. One of those TV series projects, a crime drama called The Waterfront, was picked up by the Netflix streaming service back in May. Now The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Holt McCallany (The Iron Claw) and Maria Bello (A History of Violence) are set to star in that series!
Inspired by true events, The Waterfront dives into the flawed Buckley family as their attempts to retain control of their crumbling North Carolina fishing empire drive them to increasingly dangerous means to keep themselves afloat.
Bello is taking on the role of Mae Buckley, who has been running the family business with her son after her husband took a step back. She’s been employing questionable tactics to keep the fishery running in a desperate attempt to save the family. McCallany’s character is Mae’s husband, Harlan.
Universal Television is producing The Waterfront. Williamson is writing the series and executive producing with his Outerbanks Entertainment partner Ben Fast. The first season of the show is expected to consist of eight episodes… and filming is apparently going to take place in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is also where Dawson’s Creek was shot. I Know What You Did Last Summer was filmed in Southport, North Carolina, which is only about 30 miles from Wilmington, and Williamson is from a town that’s 95 miles from Wilmington, so this is an area he is quite familiar with.
It’s cool to see that Williamson is still working on so many projects, and I look forward to seeing how The Waterfront is going to turn out. The other shows currently in development at Outerbanks are a TV series reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, which was itself based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder; The It Girl, based on the novel of the same name by Ruth Ware, which follows a woman on the search for answers a decade after the murder of her friend. Williamson is co-writing the script with Sarah L. Thompson; and The Game, an adaptation of the David Fincher movie. Original screenwriters John Brancato and Michael Ferris are adapting the project.
Does The Waterfront sound interesting to you? What do you think of Holt McCallany and Maria Bello coming on board to star in the series? Let us know by leaving a comment below.