Apple Goes to the Gilded Age With Edith Wharton Drama ‘The Buccaneers’

Apple may have found its version of The Gilded Age and Bridgerton.

The tech giant and streamer has gone straight to series on an eight-episode drama inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel, The Buccaneers. The series stars Kristine Froseth (The Assistant), Alisha Boe (13 Reasons Why), Josie Totah (Saved by the Bell), Aubri Ibrag (Dive Club), Imogen Waterhouse (The Outpost) and Mia Threapleton (Shadows). Production is already under way in Scotland.

The series, from writer and creator Katherine Jakeways (Tracey Ullman’s Show), revolves around a group of fun-loving young American girls who exploded into the tightly corseted London season of the 1870s, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash. Sent to secure husbands and titles, the buccaneers’ hearts are set on much more than that — and saying ‘I do’ is just the beginning.

BAFTA nominee Beth Willis (Doctor Who), Emmy winner George Faber (Generation Kill), Jakeways and BAFTA winner Susanna White (Generation Kill, Jane Eyre) will all executive produce. White is set as the lead director on the series, which is produced by The Forge Entertainment.

Wharton, an American who died in 1937, was a novelist who wrote about the Gilded Age and was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature for The Age of Innocence. The Buccaneers was the last novel she wrote and was unfinished at the time of her passing. It was published unfinished in 1938. Marion Mainwaring finished the novel, following the author’s outline, in 1993.

U.K.-based Forge Entertainment is the production company behind Ackley Bridge and Collateral.

Froseth is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content and Hansen Jacobson. Boe is with Entertainment 360, Greene & Associates and Jackoway Austen. Totah is with WME and Management 360. Ibrag is with Echo Lake Entertainment and CBM Management. Waterhouse is with CAA and Margrit Polak Management. Threapleton is with United Agents.