Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions, Skydance TV Developing Post-WWII NYC Set Prime Video Series ‘Backwards In Heels’

EXCLUSIVE: We hear that Amazon in a competitive situation has taken the Jennifer Lopez-produced Skydance TV series Backwards in Heels off the table.

The show will be written and directed by Oscar nominee Richard LaGravenese and follows the aspirational and timeless story about the glamourous women living at the Barbizon Hotel in post-WWII New York City.

Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, and Benny Medina will produce under their Nuyorican Productions. Julie Goldstein is also producing.

David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost are producing for Skydance TV.

The Barbizon Hotel, located at 140 East 63rd St. on the Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was for several decades a female-only residential hotel for young women who came to NYC for professional opportunities. Built in 1927, the 23-story hotel was a blend of Italian Renaissance and late Gothic revival and Islamic decorative elements. No men were allowed above the ground floor, and strict dress and conduct rules were enforced. Men began to be admitted as guests in 1981. Famous guests and residents throughout its history included Lauren Bacall, Betty Buckley, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth and Grace Kelly, among several others.

Lopez was honored with the Icon Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards last week. She recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of her breakout movie Selena, in which she played the Tejano legend. The actress’ recent romantic comedy feature Marry Me was one of the most viewed movies ever on NBCUni’s Peacock streaming service, approaching 6M accounts. Before the pandemic, her crime caper feature Hustlers ranked as her highest-grossing live-action movie of her career at the domestic B.O. with $105M, and her biggest opening ever with $33M. Lopez and her Nuyorican Productions are teaming with Skydance and Concord to develop a slate of original projects based on the latter’s catalog of musicals, which includes the works of Broadway icons Rodgers & Hammerstein. She next is starring and producing the Netflix movies The Mother and Atlas. Lopez is repped by CAA, the Medina Co. and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum.

LaGravenese’s feature directing credits include Beautiful Creatures, P.S. I Love You, The Last Five Years and Living Out Loud. He was nominated for an Original Screenplay Oscar for Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. He created the WeTV series The Divide and wrote such movies as The Mirror Has Two Faces, The Horse Whisperer, Water for Elephants and Behind the Candelabra. He is repped by CAA and Schreck Rose Dapello.

Skydance TV has the longest-running comedy series on Netflix, the 13-time Emmy-nominated Grace and Frankie, in addition to Reacher on Prime Video and Foundation on AppleTV+.