AMC Networks today announced that it has greenlit two new original series for 2023, Demascus and Invitation to a Bonfire. Both shows were developed as part of AMC’s “scripts-to-series” model, which opens writers’ rooms to develop prospective series that, in success, move straight-to-series. The first season of each AMC Studios series will include six episodes, to appear next year on AMC+ and AMC.
Demascus is a half-hour series executive produced by Mark Johnson’s Gran Via Productions (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad) and created by accomplished writer and playwright, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm (Boomerang). Kirk Moore (American Crime, For Life) is showrunner. Myki Bajaj of Gran Via is also a producer.
The series is a character-driven exploration of life as an ordinary Black man in America today. It focuses on Demascus, a 33-year-old Black man who goes on a journey of self-discovery using an innovative new technology that allows him to experience different versions of his own life. The series follows these vivid psychological explorations and also Demascus in his primary reality.
Based on the novel by Adrienne Celt, Invitation to a Bonfire is a psychological thriller set in the 1930s at an all-girls boarding school in New Jersey. Inspired by Vladimir and Vera Nabokov’s codependent marriage, our story revolves around Zoya, a young Russian immigrant and groundskeeper, who is drawn into a lethal love triangle with the school’s newest faculty member (an enigmatic novelist) – and his bewitching wife.
The series is from creator and executive producer Rachel Caris Love (Physical, Blindspot), who is also showrunner. Robin Schwartz and Kyle Laursen are executive producers, with Carolyn Daucher also serving as producer.
“These are two unique, different, and highly emotional series we can’t wait to share with viewers next year, both with compelling characters at the center driving the storytelling in distinct and very personal ways,” said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “Demascus is a real and engaging exploration of being a Black man in America, with a rich and full character as our guide. Bonfire gives us a world of love, loss, identity, and complication that we know viewers will find themselves lost in.”
These new series join an expanding slate of original programming on tap for AMC+ and AMC that include final seasons of the popular and critically acclaimed series The Walking Dead, Killing Eve and Better Call Saul, returning originals like Kevin Can F**K Himself and Gangs of London and a wide array of new series including the gritty courtroom drama 61st Street, Dark Winds, Tales of the Walking Dead, Moonhaven and the first two series in an Anne Rice universe, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.
