For Your Own Good

The two WarnerMedia-based producers have together optioned author Samantha Downing’s forthcoming novel For Your Own Good and are developing it for the year-old streaming service.

Set to publish in July, For Your Own Good takes place within the halls of New England’s prestigious Belmont Academy. Set amid Ivy League admissions rolling in, stiff competition for this year’s coveted Teacher of the Year Award and planning for the memorial statue for the recently deceased headmaster, the book and potential series also explore the run of poisonings and dead bodies that have started to pile up at the university.

A search is underway for a writer to develop the novel.

Evan Moore of Team Downey, who brought the project to the company, will oversee for Team Downey. Berlanti Productions partners Berlanti and Sarah Schechter and head of television David Madden will exec produce for the Warner Bros. TV-based production company. Team Downey’s Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell will exec produce for the company, which has a first-look deal with HBO.

Author Downing, who previously penned My Lovely Wife and He Started It, will serve as a consulting producer on the drama. For Your Own Good is the second of her novels to be adapted for the screen; Amazon and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films are adapting My Lovely Wife as a feature for the retail giant/streamer. She’s repped by Grandview and Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

Team Downey’s TV slate includes HBO’s Perry Mason, Netflix’s Sweet Tooth and an untitled drama at Apple. Downey Jr. is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson.