Alex Cross is a detective based on the crime thriller novel series by author James Patterson. Morgan Freeman portrayed him in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, and now Prime Video is taking a crack at it with a new series starring Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta Compton, Black Adam) and Isaiah Mustafa (It Chapter Two, Shadowhunters).

The series follows Alex Cross, a recently widowed father of two who’s following the trail of a serial killer. Playing his best friend and partner, Detective John Sampson, is Mustafa. Serving as showrunner is the series creator Ben Watkins (Hand of God, Burn Notice).

“People love true crime,” Mustafa tells Nerd Reactor in a roundtable interview. “They love to read about it, learn about it, know what makes people tick, and sometimes that is morbid. But you’re learning about something that maybe you would never peek at before. This show has made me such a fan of the genre that I find myself listening to more true crime podcasts.”

Audiences will get to see the villains early on in the series, allowing them to get inside their minds.

“One of the things I took away from reading the Alex Cross books was that they give you a chance to live with the villain,” said Watkins. “If it’s a serial killer, often it’s a serial killer, they make that villain a real character. So we’ve decided to do that and get into their POV. And we got a chance to really dig into what is our villain’s POV, what is their motivation, and what is their view on life and death. But there are some really dark and twisted things going on.”

To catch a villain, sometimes one must understand how they think.

“Now you have a guy like Alex Cross whose background is forensic psychology, and he’s a genius intellect with an insatiable curiosity,” the showrunner continued. “He’s also got this clinical psychology background, and he’s got to use that to get inside the mind of a psychopath. But you have to ask yourself what kind of toll does that take on someone, but you also know that you want someone out there who’s willing to go to the darkest depths in a psychopath’s mind to protect us from that.”

About Cross

Starring Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross, all eight episodes of Cross will premiere worldwide in more than 240 countries and territories on November 14 exclusively on Prime Video. From Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television, Cross is a complex, twisted, pulse-pounding thriller created by showrunner and executive producer Ben Watkins, based upon the characters from James Patterson’s best-selling Alex Cross book series. In advance of its season one debut, the series was renewed for a second season at Prime Video’s inaugural upfront presentation.

Alex Cross is a detective and forensic psychologist, uniquely capable of digging into the psyches of killers and their victims, in order to identify—and ultimately capture—the murderers. Hodge stars in the series and also serves as a producer. Cross also stars Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings, Alona Tal, Samantha Walkes, Caleb Elijah, Melody Hurd, Jennifer Wigmore, Eloise Mumford, and Ryan Eggold.

Watkins serves as showrunner and executive produces the series via his Blue Monday Productions banner. Sam Ernst, Jim Dunn, and Craig Siebels also executive produce, with James Patterson, Bill Robinson, and Patrick Santa executive producing for James Patterson Entertainment. David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Bill Bost are executive producing for Skydance Television.

Cross is produced by Amazon MGM Studios, Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television.