“Hanna” was just the beginning of Sarah Adina Smith’s career at Amazon. According to Deadline, she’s inked a first-look deal with Amazon Studios. Under the pact, Smith, who directed the first two eps of Amazon’s series adaptation of “Hanna,” will develop television projects for Amazon Prime Video through her Everything Is Everything shingle.
“This marks an extension of the strong relationship Amazon Studios has with Sarah Adina Smith, who made her mark on the successful first season of ‘Hanna,’” said Vernon Sanders, Co-Head of Television at Amazon Studios. “Her proven track record of creating compelling stories and authentic characters across a range of genres make Smith and her Everything Is Everything banner a perfect fit for the compelling content we are creating for Amazon Prime Video.”
“Amazon is a perfect match for the kind of subversive, genre-bending TV Everything Is Everything plans to make,” Smith commented. “Talking with the exceptional team at Amazon Studios, I could tell they share my calling to create spellbinding stories that shock, seduce, and bind us together.”
Smith wrote and directed mystery-thrillers “Buster’s Mal Heart” and “The Midnight Swim.” She’s also helmed episodes of “Room 104,” “Wrecked,” and “Legion,” as well as the pilot for Hulu’s adaptation of the beloved YA novel “Looking for Alaska.” Next, Smith is penning a pilot for FX and developing a featured based on sci-fi novel “Girl in Landscape.”
When we asked Smith for her advice for other women directors, she said, “I would tell them to do things their own way and don’t feel like you ever have to conform to the system, because the system was largely built by men.” She added, “We need to take all the good lessons from the past and from those existing systems but also not be afraid to make our own rules.”