'Straight Outta Compton' writer penning Amazon series based on The Grateful Dead

Image from Rolling Stone

By Darian Scalamoni

            Amazon just keeps adding innovative and intriguing programs to their slate of original programming. They’ve also stockpiled a number of feature films as Amazon originals including The Grateful Dead documentary, Long Strange Trip. It seems this isn’t the only project in the works about the legendary band however, as the network is producing a biographical TV series that will be written by Jonathan Herman (Straight Outta Compton), per Deadline.

            The show will be based on the memoir from Grateful Dead roadie, Steve Parish titled Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead. The iconic group that rose to prominence in the 1960s is regarded by many as one of the greatest bands in the history of music. Not only were they great musicians, but they were a movement, touring almost without stop for three decades before frontman Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995. Co-founder Bob Weir will executively produce the show along with Parish and will oversee the music.

            Herman being the guy to write this series after his successful Oscar-nominated screenplay based on a legendary music group like N.W.A. Though they were a hip-hop group compared to the rock group that the Grateful Dead was, he helped a movie that could’ve been something like Notorious be one of the best films of the year. I’m excited to see how the show comes together in terms of casting and on a streaming service like Amazon.