THE BIG SICK’s Kumail Nanjiani & Emily V. Gordon Writing LITTLE AMERICA Series

Fresh off a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for The Big Sick, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon have been, I'd assume, bombarded with offers for their next screenwriting project. Gordon has an adaptation of The Nest coming up, but as a pair, their next project has been a mystery.

If you had an imminent offer for these two, too bad: they're now working on an anthology series about American immigrant stories, based on Epic Magazine's "Little America" articles. It's being set up at Apple's ever-swelling original content division, with Nanjiani and Gordon writing and executive-producing alongside showrunner Lee Eisenberg (The Office) and modern comedy-producing legend Alan Yang (Parks and Recreation; The Good Place; Master of None).

Epic Magazine, for the unenlightened, is a miraculous online space dedicated to the kind of long-form journalism we don't get enough of anymore - the kind of journalism that's already inspired movies like Argo. Little America will be based on the series of essays collected under that title on the Epic Magazine site - in-depth stories about the immigrant experience in these United States. It's a source brimming with vitality and potential for an anthology series, and Nanjiani and Gordon's senses of drama, humour, romance, and empathy make them perfect to spearhead an adaptation.

Little America is in the early stages of development, and nobody even knows how Apple will distribute its shows yet, so it's still a ways off. In the meantime, if you haven't seen The Big Sick yet: get with the programme, literally what are you doing with your life, etc.