‘Cleo’: ‘Jane the Virgin’ Creator Working on Ancient Egyptian Dramedy!!

Jane the Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman has been tapped alongside Man With a Plan‘s Jessica Runck to create the one-hour dramedy Cleo at Peacock, per Deadline, which follows one of history’s most infamous and powerful women, Queen Cleopatra. The two will be joined on the production by Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, TrillTV, and CBS Studios where Urman is currently signed to an overall deal. Runck will pen the series while Urman will serve as showrunner.

Cleo is said to share much of Jane the Virgin‘s feminist sensibilities as it follows the young, massively overqualified, and intelligent Cleopatra as she tries to maintain her status as Queen of Egypt. To do that, however, she masks her competence with makeup, fashion, and men to garner respect from those around her. The dramedy sets out to prove that, in reality, little has changed within the last 2,000 years.

Together, Urman and Runck bring a powerful, if unheralded TV pedigree to the table. Urman is a Peabody Award winner for her signature CW romantic dramedy, though she has a number of other titles under her belt including the Charmed reboot and Emily Owens M.D. She also has a long string of writing and production credits with 90210, Good Sam, Flowers in the Attic: The Origin, and Gilmore Girls all included on her resume. On the big screen, she penned the screenplay for the Emily Griffin adaptation Something Borrowed.

Runck, meanwhile, has a relationship already with CBS Studios as she was a staff writer on the Emmy-nominated comedy Man With a Plan. Boarding for the final three seasons of the series, she quickly rose to become the executive story editor. She also was a writer and co-executive producer on Book Club and an associate producer on Man Life Crisis. More recently, she joined forces with Hallmark as a consulting producer for The Way Home.

Who Else is Involved in Cleo?

Cleo will see Urman and Runck joined as executive producers by Kaplan and Brian Morewitz for Kapital Entertainment, Wendi Trilling for TrillTV, Joanna Klein, and Karen Forman. Kapital and TrillTV have been tied to the hip, creating a number of projects specifically for CBS including The Neighborhood, Fam, 9JKL, and The Unicorn. On its own, Kapital has been responsible for producing other hits like The Chi, Shining Vale, and American Auto among others.