Dick Wolf Expands ‘Law & Order’ Franchise With New Series
Dun dun!
Emmy Award-winning producer Dick Wolf has created a new series, Law & Order: Hate Crimes, which just received a 13-episode order from NBC.
The franchise addition, from showrunner Warren Leight, “is based on New York’s actual Hate Crimes Task Force, the second oldest bias-based task force in the U.S. The unit, which pledges to uphold a zero tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind, works under the NYPD’s real Special Victims Unit and often borrows SVU’s detectives to assist in their investigations,” a press release revealed.
The series will premiere in the latter part of the Law & Order: SVU’s upcoming 20th season.
“As Law & Order: SVU enters its remarkable 20th season, it is exciting to get back into business with Dick Wolf on a new Law & Order incarnation that feels extremely timely,” said Lisa Katz, Co-President of Scripted Programming, NBC Entertainment. “Considering that last year there was a double-digit rise in hate crimes in our 10 largest cities — the highest total in over a decade — it seemed like this topic is begging to be explored.”
Law & Order: Hate Crimes will be “set in New York City, where crimes motivated by discrimination are vigorously investigated by an elite, specially trained team of investigators. Going behind the headlines and viral videos, these diverse, dedicated and passionate detectives will stop at nothing to bring these criminals to justice.”
“As with all of my crime shows, I want to depict what’s really going on in our cities and shine a light on the wide-ranging victims and show that justice can prevail,” Wolf said in a statement.
“Twenty years ago when SVU began, very few people felt comfortable coming forward and reporting these crimes, but when you bring the stories into people’s living rooms – with characters as empathetic as Olivia Benson – a real dialogue can begin. That’s what I hope we can do with this new show in a world where hate crimes have reached an egregious level.”
Wolf and Warren Leight are creators and executive producers on the series with Peter Jankowski and Arthur Forney also serving as executive producers.
Law & Order: Hate Crimes, 2019, NBC
