Marvel Studios has announced via press release that Cheo Hodari Coker will act as executive producer and showrunner for "Marvel's Luke Cage." Coker, whose credits include "Ray Donovan" and "Southland," will also write the first two episodes of the Netflix series. The announcement states that "Luke Cage" will premiere in 2016.

In addition to a role as supervising producer on the fourth season of the critically acclaimed police drama "Southland," Coker has served as co-executive producer on both Showtime's "Ray Donovan" and Fox's "Almost Human." Coker also penned the screenplay for "Notorious," the feature film based on the life of the Notorious B.I.G.

Coker, a noted comic book fan, discussed the influence Spider-Man had on the script for "Notorious" during a 2012 appearance on the Nerdist Writers Panel

"It's ironic telling the story at a comic book store," said Coker. "One of the best stories Biggie told me was that what he used to do, that's actually the very first scene that I wrote for the movie that's actually in the movie, is he said that he would leave home wearing, like, the clothes that his mother bought him and that he would go up on the roof and then he would change into all the fly gear that he had bought from his drug dealing exploits that he hid from his mother. His mother never really believed that her Christopher was somebody different on the street, so, in my mind, I saw her as Aunt May. I saw him as, you know, Biggie was Spider-Man, Christopher Wallace was Peter Parker."

Mike Colter will play series lead Luke Cage in the thirteen-episode series. Colter will make his debut as the character in "A.K.A. Jessica Jones," another Netflix/Marvel series scheduled to debut later this year.

With a showrunner announced, it can be assumed that "Luke Cage" will be the third in Netflix's five Marvel series following "Daredevil" and "A.K.A. Jessica Jones." Netflix has yet to announce a lead actor or showrunner for its remainingsolo hero series, "Iron Fist." The first series, "Daredevil," will debut on April 10.

Official Press Release

CHEO HODARI COKER

WILL SERVE AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND SHOWRUNNER

OF MARVEL'S LUKE CAGE FOR NETFLIX

Beverly Hills, CA -- March 31, 2015 -- Netflix & Marvel Television announced today that Cheo Hodari Coker will serve as executive producer and showrunner of the anticipated series, Marvel's Luke Cage. Coker is writing the first two episodes of the series that will premiere in 2016, everywhere that Netflix is available.

Most recently, Coker served as a co-executive producer on the second season of Ray Donovan, and prior to that was a supervising producer on the critically-acclaimed, fourth season of the drama SouthLAnd. Coker was a part of the SouthLAnd team that earned the show a 2012 Peabody Award. Coker also garnered a 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing for a Dramatic Series for his work on that show. Coker's feature film credits include Fox Searchlight's rap biopic Notorious. He authored the book Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G as well. Coker started his writing career in journalism and was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and contributed to VIBE, Rolling Stone, Essence, among other publications. He is a graduate of Stanford University.

It was previously announced that Mike Colter (The Good Wife, American Horror Story: Coven) will play the charismatic lead character, Luke Cage, in the series.

Marvel's Luke Cage is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios for Netflix.