HBO is developing Dorothea, a true crime drama about Dorothea Puente, with Geena Davis set to star and executive produce. Joshua Michael Stern wrote the series and serves as showrunner.
The project puts Davis at the center of a story that keeps drawing attention because it is built around one of California’s most notorious murder cases. Dorothea is inspired by Puente, who in the 1980s ran a boarding house in Sacramento for the less fortunate while secretly murdering her boarders and cashing their social security checks.
Dorothea Puente kept that pattern going for years before suspicion caught up with her. She was ultimately arrested after evading suspicion, later convicted for three of the murders and spent her last years in prison. That history gives the HBO project a built-in hook: a woman who presented as benevolent and matronly while hiding a far darker life behind the same front door.
The series also marks a notable return for Davis. It would be her first series-starring vehicle since Commander In Chief, and she will next be seen in The Wrong Girls and The Kellys. Behind the camera, the credits add more weight: Michael Rosenbaum originated the project, brought it to Bristol Circle Entertainment, and developed it with Jane Whitney and Stern before the package landed at HBO.
What HBO has not said yet is when Dorothea will move from development into production or when it will reach viewers. For now, the project is set up, the lead is attached, and the material is notorious enough to carry the series as soon as HBO decides to roll.
