{"id":749041,"date":"2026-07-07T19:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/749041\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T19:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:18:09","slug":"viola-davis-julius-tennons-juvee-inks-first-look-deal-with-ugt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/749041\/","title":{"rendered":"Viola Davis & Julius Tennon’s Juvee Inks First-Look Deal With UGT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJuVee Productions<\/a>, the production company founded by Emmy and Oscar winner Viola Davis<\/a> and producer Julius Tennon<\/a>, has entered into a first-look deal with Universal Global Television<\/a>. Under the pact, Juvee will develop and produce series with UGT for all platforms, and has set Pawn, a series adaptation based on an original short story by bestselling author Kennedy Ryan\u00a0(Before I Let Go, Score), as the first project.<\/p>\n

\n\tChantelle M. Wells\u00a0(Daredevil: Born Again, Yellowjackets) will pen the Pawn adaptation. Davis,\u00a0Tennon\u00a0and JuVee Productions\u2019 Head of TV\u00a0Andrew Wang\u00a0will serve as executive producers, alongside Wells and Ryan.<\/p>\n

\n\tPawn is a romantic drama series that follows Gina Jones, who makes a deal to become a \u201cpawn\u201d for the St. Louis crime family, the Rossis, in exchange for money to pay for her ailing grandmother\u2019s medical treatments. The Rossis want to take down their rivals, the Norths, by targeting their heir apparent, Drayden, who is also Gina\u2019s new boss. But when Gina and Drayden\u2019s attraction to each other becomes undeniable, she has to navigate both families\u2019 threats and secrets to go from \u201cpawn\u201d to Queen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFrom our first meeting together, we felt uniquely connected on how we plan to bring empowering and fearless voices to the screen,\u201d Davis and Tennon said in a statement. \u201cWe have long been fans of Kennedy Ryan since reading her simmering Before I Let Go and Chantelle Wells has worked on some of the most iconic shows of the last decade, carving out her power as a storyteller who is willing to push the boundaries of expectations. To be able to work with these powerhouses to bring Pawn to life with UGT speaks directly as to why we created JuVee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeatrice Springborn, President of Universal Global Television, said:\u00a0\u201cViola, Julius and Andrew have built JuVee into a home for dynamic and powerful stories \u2013 a commitment we are proud to partner with them on, beginning with the excellent and gripping Pawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrew Wang, JuVee Head of TV, added:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful to Beatrice and the incredible team at UGT for joining us in creating this new chapter for JuVee. Their instincts in telling bold, provocative stories aligns with our mission to continue to bring shows that offer a global range of perspectives with characters that redefine the genres they are in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJuVee Productions\u00a0is an artist-driven, Los Angeles-based company that has produced work across film, television, theater and digital platforms. Committed to amplifying both emerging and established voices, JuVee Productions aims to serve as a creative hub for the next generation of storytellers, fostering bold, dynamic narratives that reflect the full spectrum of humanity. JuVee is repped by CAA and Lichter Grossman Nichols Adler Feldman Clark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JuVee Productions, the production company founded by Emmy and Oscar winner Viola Davis and producer Julius Tennon, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,321307,321308,92,321309,77986],"class_list":["post-749041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-julius-tennon","tag-juvee-productions","tag-tv","tag-universal-global-television","tag-viola-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}