Amazon Developing Boys Come First Series Based On Aaron Foleys Debut Novel; Chuck Hayward To Pen The Pilot, Serve As EP

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios has secured rights to Aaron Foley’s debut novel Boys Come First, with plans to develop the property for television, tapping Chuck Hayward (Ted Lasso) to pen the pilot and exec produce the series.

Field Trip will produce the show, developed under their overall deal with Amazon Studios, with the company’s co-founders Will Graham and Hailey Wierengo also set to exec produce alongside their VP of Development, Stephanie Dietz. And Deadline understands that Hayward is also in discussions to serve as showrunner.

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Boys Come First tells the humorously heartfelt story of three gay millennial Black men looking for love, navigating friendships and pursuing professional success against the rapidly evolving backdrop of contemporary Detroit. The Cleveland-based Belt Publishing published the novel in May of last year.

A 2x Emmy and WGA Award nom perhaps best known as a co-executive producer on Apple TV+’s international smash hit Ted Lasso, Hayward has also served in that capacity on Hulu’s Amy Schumer series Life & Beth. He previously wrote and served as a supervising producer on Disney+’s hit Marvel series WandaVision and has also worked on such notable series as ABC’s Mixed-ish, Showtime’s Flatbush Misdemeanors and Netflix’s Dear White People. His most recent writing credit on the feature side is Treehouse Pictures’ remake of the classic dark comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, which shoots this spring. He sold his first feature script, Step Sisters, to Netflix via Broad Green Pictures, with Charles Stone on board to direct, also previously selling a feature pitch to Pepsi with T.I. attached to star and The Firm producing.  

Foley is a journalist and author whose reporting and writing on Detroit, blackness and queerness has appeared in This American Life, Jalopnik, The Atlantic, CNN, several anthologies and PBS NewsHour, where he is currently a senior digital editor. The Detroit native was named the city’s first appointed “chief storyteller” and is also known for the book How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass.

Founded in 2017 by writer-director-producer Graham and producer and former UTA agent Wierengo, Field Trip Productions’ first project was the GLAAD Media Award-nominated series A League of Their Own, based on Penny Marshall’s classic film, which debuted to critical acclaim on Prime Video last summer and was recently picked up for a four-episode second and final season. Graham created the series with Abbi Jacobson, with the pair also serving as showrunners and exec producing alongside Wierengo. 

Under their first-look deal with Amazon, Field Trip most recently launched the hit limited series Daisy Jones & The Six, starring Riley Keough, for which Graham served as co-showrunner and exec producer. Dietz was promoted to Vice President of the company in 2022, having been with them since 2018. 

Hayward is repped by APA, Heroes and Villains Entertainment and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Foley by APA and Nordlyset Literary Agency; and Field Trip by UTA, Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and Hansen Jacobson Teller. 

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