Rolin Jones Inks Overall Deal With 20th Century Fox TV & Fox 21 TV Studios

Playwright/TV writer Rolin Jones has signed an overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television. Under the two-year pact, Jones will develop new television projects for network and cable through his production company, New Neighborhood.

“Rolin is a brilliant writer whom we’ve been tracking for a very long time, and when he became available we moved aggressively to get him,” said 20th TV President of Creative Affairs Jonnie Davis. “He’s an entirely original voice who can tell a very big story, and every broadcast network wants to be in business with him.”

So far, Jones largely has gravitated toward cable projects, though he served as a co-executive producer on NBC’s Smash. He most recently was under an overall deal at AMC, where he co-wrote and executive produced the pilot Knifeman and served as a co-executive producer on Low Winter Sun. Jones earned a writing Emmy nomination for his work on DirecTV drama Friday Night Lights and shared in the best series Emmy noms for FNL and Showtime’s Weeds. He also did stints on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and Showtime’s United States Of Tara. 

“His pilot Knifeman was phenomenal, and the work he did on series from Boardwalk to Weeds speaks to his diversity as a writer and his value in the cable marketplace,” said Bert Salke, president of 20th TV’s cable division Fox 21 TV Studios. “We knew we had to work with him, and we couldn’t be more excited to have him as part of our roster.”

As a playwright, Jones’ These Paper Bullets! premiered at the Yale Repertory Theater in 2014, and won four Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including Best Production of the Year. Additionally, his play The Intelligent Design Of Jenny Chow received the M. Elizabeth Osborne Award from the America Theater Critics Association and the Obie Award for Excellence in Playwriting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Jones, repped by CAA, the Shuman Company and attorney Tara Kole, is writing the film adaptation of American Idiot for Universal Pictures.