Jaden Smith Set to Play Young Kanye West in New Showtime Series Omniverse

In a story that might as well have been pulled from a pop-culture headline generator, it appears Jaden Smith has been tapped to play a young Kanye West in a new Showtime anthology series titled Omniverse. West is developing the series at Showtime with Scooter Braun, writer Lee Sung Jin and Westbrook Studios, according to THR.

The half-hour limited series will reportedly follow a young West through an alternate reality as he explores the idea of ego. A pilot has been ordered for the first season at Showtime, which has been making efforts to expand its slate of original content in recent years. Omniverse would be the first anthology series to land on the cable channel in quite some time, and it would also provide a noteworthy half-hour series for a channel that mostly invests in hour-long dramas. West is set to executive produce the series alongside Smith, Braun, Jin, James Shin, Scott Manson and Miguel Melendez.

The series will mark West’s first venture into television. Smith has dabbled in acting before, despite spending most of his time making music. He last appeared in Crystal Moselle’s debut film Skate Kitchen, which premiered at Sundance last year. He also had a role in Ezra Koenig’s animated Netflix series Neo Yokio in 2017. Jin is an accomplished comedy writer whose credits include Silicon Valley and the new Netflix series Tuca & Bertie, from the creators of BoJack Horseman.

No details about the timeline of Omniverse’s production are known at this time.