‘Long Division’ Series Adaptation In The Works From Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions

EXCLUSIVE: Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions is developing a series based on Kiese Laymon’s coming-of-age novel Long Division.

The adaptation comes as it shuffles its television executive ranks with the hire of Chloe Ifshin as VP of Scripted Television and Eugene Han as Head of Unscripted Development.

The book, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2021, explores family, hope, grief, love, and race through poetic language and satire.  

It weaves together the coming-of-age stories of two Citoyen “City” Coldsons from different time periods in the coastal community of Melahatchie, Mississippi. One City lives in 2013, where after an onstage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, he becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity and is sent to stay with his grandmother in Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared. Before leaving, City is given a strange book called ‘Long Division,’ which tells the story of a City Coldson in 1985. The stories of these two Citys and the incredible cast of characters that surround them ultimately converge in City’s grandmother’s backyard, where the truth of Baize’s disappearance is revealed.

Laymon, a MacArthur grant recipient, will write the pilot and exec produce the series adaptation alongside Noah, Day Zero President Sanaz Yamin and Mainstay Entertainment’s Norman Aladjem and Derek Van Pelt.

Laymon is represented by PJ Mark at Janklow & Nesbit Associates and UTA, which brokered the deal. Noah is represented by CAA, Mainstay Entertainment, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman.