Netflix & Marvel Television announced today that Cheo Hodari Coker will serve as executive producer and showrunner of the anticipated series, Marvel’s Luke Cage. Coker is writing the first two episodes of the series that will premiere in 2016, everywhere that Netflix is available.
Most recently, Coker served as a co-executive producer on the second season of Ray Donovan, and prior to that was a supervising producer on the critically-acclaimed, fourth season of the drama SouthLAnd. Coker was a part of the SouthLAnd team that earned the show a 2012 Peabody Award. Coker also garnered a 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing for a Dramatic Series for his work on that show. Coker’s feature film credits include Fox Searchlight’s rap biopic Notorious. He authored the book Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G as well. Coker started his writing career in journalism and was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and contributed to VIBE, Rolling Stone, Essence, among other publications. He is a graduate of Stanford University.
It was previously announced that Mike Colter (The Good Wife, American Horror Story: Coven) will play the charismatic lead character, Luke Cage, in the series.
Marvel’s Luke Cage is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios for Netflix.
This is an interesting choice, and based on his accolades, Coker is the perfect choice to bring a character like Luke Cage (and the world he inhabits) to life in a convincing manner. Of course, he'll be showing up in A.K.A. Jessica Jones later this year before his solo series launches. Thoughts?