Amazon Prime Video has announced a March 11th 2026 premiere date for “Scarpetta,” the upcoming crime drama series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis. The first photos have also been released.
The books follow opera-loving workaholic coroner and forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta and deal with a large amount of forensic science, the work serving as an influence on modern crime procedural series.
The TV series version unfolds across two time periods, 28 years apart, with Kidman as the older Scarpetta who is determined to serve as the voice of the victims, unmask a serial killer, and prove that her career-making case from 28 years prior isn’t also her undoing.
The narrative will show her beginnings as a chief medical examiner in the late 1990s to her present-day return to her hometown, where she resumes her former position while investigating a grisly murder.
As Scarpetta pursues justice, she must navigate complicated relationships, including the fraught dynamic with her sister, Dorothy Farinelli, confront long-held professional and personal grudges, and face secrets that threaten to unravel everything she’s built.
In the present day scenes, Jamie Lee Curtis will play her sister Dorothy, Bobby Cannavale will be Detective Pete Marino, Simon Baker will be FBI profiler Benton Wesley, and Ariana DeBose will be Kay’s tech-savvy niece Lucy Watson.
Scenes set in the 1990s will see Rosy McEwen as Kay Scarpetta, Amanda Righetti as Dorothy, Jake Cannavale as Marino, and Hunter Parrish as Wesley.
The series hails from writer-showrunner Liz Sarnoff (“Barry”), Blumhouse Television and Amazon MGM Studios. Kidman, Curtis, Cornwell, Sarnoff, Jason Blum, Per Saari, Chris Dickie, David Gordon Green, Amy Sayres, Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold executive produce.
Cornwell has published 27 books starting with “Postmortem” in 1990 and has sold 120 million copies to date.
