Melissa McCarthy, Clive Owen to Star in ‘JonBenet Ramsey’ Limited Series at Paramount+

A pair of Oscar nominees will lead a limited series about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.

Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen will star in the drama, currently titled JonBenét Ramsey, which has scored a series order at Paramount+. The series comes from Yellowstone producers MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios and showrunner Richard LaGravenese (Behind the Candelabra). LaGravense and series creators Harrison Query and Tommy Wallach are writing.

Anne Sewitsky (Presumed Innocent) has also signed on to direct four of the eight episodes in the series.

MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios began developing the project earlier this year. McCarthy and Owen will play JonBenet’s parents, Patsy and John Ramsey, whose daughter, a 6-year-old child beauty pageant contestant, was found dead in their home in December 1996. The case (which is still unsolved) became a media sensation and brought intense scrutiny on the parents, who were for a time considered suspects but never charged.

“Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen are an extraordinary duo to delve into this tragic story that has cast a long, haunting shadow over American culture for nearly three decades,” said Chris McCarthy, Paramount Global Co-CEO and president and CEO of Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios.

JonBenét Ramsey will follow the family before and after the tragedy “as they go through the painful loss of a child while facing intense public scrutiny caused by a media frenzy that caused this case to captivate an entire nation,” the show’s description reads. “At the heart of the series, it is the story of Patsy and John Ramsey, exploring the unbreakable partnership of these two complex people — as husband and wife, as mother and father — who had committed themselves and their children to building the narrative of a perfect, privileged life only to have it destroyed one Christmas night in 1996.”

“JonBenét Ramsey continues to be one of the country’s most fascinating unsolved murders,” said Jeff Grossman, executive vp programming at Paramount+. “The incredible talent of Melissa McCarthy, Clive Owen and the creative team led by Richard LaGravenese will illuminate her story with the acuity and nuance it deserves.”  

Added 101 Studios CEO David Glasser, “We have been working to bring this thought-provoking and bold project to audiences for some time now and could not be happier with the top notch team working in front of and behind the camera.”

McCarthy (Bridesmaids, Gilmore Girls) is coming off Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix movie Unfrosted. The Emmy winner’s recent credits also include Peacock’s Genie, the 2023 Little Mermaid and Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers. She is repped by MGMT Entertainment and CAA.

Owen most recently starred in AMC’s Monsieur Spade and FX’s A Murder at the End of the World. The Children of Men star also played Bill Clinton in Impeachment: American Crime Story.

LaGravense, Query and Wallach are executive producing the series with Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari and David Hutkin of 101 Studios, McCarthy and Sewitsky.