Netflix and Marvel Television has selected Cheo Hodari Coker to serve as showrunner and executive producer on the upcoming series “Luke Cage.”
Coker will also write the first two episodes of the series. Most recently, Coker served as a co-executive producer on the second season of “Ray Donovan,” and prior to that was a supervising producer on the fourth season of the drama “Southland.”
Coker was a part of the “Southland” team that earned the show a 2012 Peabody Award. Coker also garnered a 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing for a Dramatic Series for his work on that show.
Coker’s feature film credits include Fox Searchlight’s rap biopic “Notorious.” He authored the book “Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G” as well.
Coker started his writing career in journalism and was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and contributed to VIBE, Rolling Stone, Essence, among other publications. He is a graduate of Stanford University.
It was previously announced that Mike Colter (“The Good Wife,” “American Horror Story: Coven”) will play the lead character, Luke Cage, in the series.
“Luke Cage” has not received an official release date yet. It is one of four series Marvel is producing with Netflix, along with “Daredevil,” “A.K.A. Jessica Jones,” and “Iron Fist.” Marvel is also planning to release a “Defenders” mini-series on exclusively on the streaming service.