Gabrielle Union is in discussions to star in and executive produce Debbie, HBO Max’s new legal drama now being shaped under the streamer’s high-output model for returning series. The project centers on Debbie Powell, a once-feared attorney whose public downfall forces her to rebuild her life and career as a public defender.
That makes Union the face of a series built around reinvention, as well as the latest notable addition to HBO Max’s procedural push. Debbie is being developed as an elevated legal drama that explores the cost of starting over and the thin line between justice and survival, with a format designed to deliver 15 episodes a year under the same approach used for The Pitt.
For Union, the role would place her at the center of a character with both professional swagger and personal damage. Debbie Powell is not written as a standard crusader. She is a woman trying to recover after a spectacular fall, using the skills, connections and relentless drive that once made her one of Atlanta’s most formidable lawyers to fight for people the system has left behind, one explosive case at a time.
The series is being written and executive produced by Bradley Bredeweg and Matthew Thomas, with Union executive producing through I’ll Have Another alongside Bredeweg, Thomas and Jenny Frankfurt. If she closes the deal, she would anchor a project that fits squarely into HBO Max’s broader effort to build out classic procedural fare while keeping production leaner than a traditional network run.
That strategy is already visible elsewhere on the slate, with the streamer also working on American Blue and David E. Kelley’s police drama Welcome To Catalina. Within that lineup, Debbie adds a legal angle that broadens HBO Max’s genre reach without drifting far from the formula viewers already know.
The unresolved piece is Union’s actual attachment. She is in talks, not yet officially signed on, and that means the series still has to clear its most important casting step before it can move from development talk to a firmer production path. For now, the project has a lead role written for Gabrielle Union — and a character whose fall is meant to be as compelling as her comeback.
