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[Tim the Wiz]

The Sparrow continues to be something I could be super into. I am an absolute sucker for stories involving first contact, although I also have a high bar to satisfy.

The others don't perk my ears up much based on just those little blurbs. Maybe Ashland, depending on what that's really about.

Brad Pitt's production company had the rights to the novel a while ago. A pick-up by AMC would be kind of bittersweet. I'd really like to see a big-budget movie version.

 

[Cornballer]

- Variety: Netflix in Talks for ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ TV Series

Cult classic “Wet Hot American Summer” could finally make its long-awaited resurrection courtesy of Netflix, according to sources.

The 2001 comedy, which boasted a who’s who of up-and-coming comedic stars playing campers at fictional Camp Firewood, may be turned into a 10-episode prequel for the streaming service.

Netflix declined comment.

Executive produced by the movie’s creators, David Wain and Michael Showalter, the serialized “Hot” would seek to reunite many of the original cast members who would play high-school-age characters despite the fact many of the actors are currently in their 40s.

While it might seem a tall order to reunite the original cast, the plan is to make it happen by having each of the actors shoot their scenes in just a few days because not every character will appear in every episode. The original cast included Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poeher, Elizabeth Banks, Ken Marino, Molly Shannon, Christopher Meloni, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Ian Black, Joe Lo Truglio and Showalter. Wain also directed the movie.

Universal Pictures, distributor of the 2001 film, is currently considering an option to come aboard the project, but no decision has been made yet and the series will be made regardless.

“Hot” will follow in the mold Netflix first struck for “Arrested Development,” another comedy that existed prior to its run on the streaming service, which brought together the entire cast from the original Fox series for another run.

 

[TheOddOne]

That sounds pretty cool.

 

[Cosmic Bus]

- Variety: Netflix in Talks for ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ TV Series

original cast members who would play high-school-age characters despite the fact many of the actors are currently in their 40s

make it happen by having each of the actors shoot their scenes in just a few days

will follow in the mold Netflix first struck for “Arrested Development,” another comedy that existed prior to its run on the streaming service

Uh, no thanks. Sounds like this has the potential to play out about as well as the AD restart, i.e. very poorly.

 

[Dan]

- THR: 'Justified's' Graham Yost Developing War Drama at WGN America

Graham Yost has found his next war drama.

The executive producer of both The Americans and Justified is developing a project based on a forthcoming Alex Kershaw novel, Avenue of Spies, for WGN America.

The drama, which is set in Nazi-occupied Paris on the eve of World War II, chronicles the true story of an American-born doctor and his family who fall in with the French Resistance, spying from their home just doors away from the Gestapo headquarters and one of Hitler's most feared SS captains. It is set up at Sony Pictures TV, which acquired the rights to the non-fiction book in a bidding war.

Andrea Berloff, best known for writing Oliver Stone’s 2006 film, World Trade Center, is attached to write and executive produce, while Yost, who likely is thinking about next steps as the sixth and final season of Justified approaches, is on board as an executive producer. The contents of Spies seem almost tailor-made for Yost, whose resume is lined with other layered war dramas including HBO’s The Pacific and Band of Brothers.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

- THR: 'Justified's' Graham Yost Developing War Drama at WGN America

Sounds good! WGN has a pretty interesting slate right now.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Adam Shankman, David Kajganich Sell 1960s NYC Drama ‘Open City’ To HBO

Madame Rose, Rock of Ages and Hairspray helmer Adam Shankman has teamed with screenwriter David Kajganich (The Invasion) on a drama series project for HBO, which Kajganich will write and Shankman will direct. Set in the pre-Stonewall New York City of the late 1960s, Open City explores characters from disparate corners of Manhattan as they navigate the cultural revolutions and political turmoil of the era, including the unlikely alliance between the Mafia and the city’s gay community in the opening of a West Village nightclub.

Sweet!

 

[TheOddOne]

That sounds really cool.

 

[Dan]

Sounds good! WGN has a pretty interesting slate right now.

They really do. Salem doesn't interest me at all, but Manhattan is of interest and a number of their developing shows sound like they have real potential. Scalped alone could be something amazing if it comes anywhere close to approaching the comics' quality. I hope they're able to pull everything together.

 

[Cornballer]

HBO PR:

Danny McBride, star of the hit HBO comedy series “Eastbound & Down,” will return to the network in the comedy series VICE PRINCIPALS, it was announced today by Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming. The show is slated for 18 episodes, with the debut date and number of episodes per season to be announced as they are confirmed.

“Danny McBride and Jody Hill have created a smart, rowdy and unpredictable style of comedy that we can’t get enough of,” said Lombardo. “The idea of them setting their minds on high school was irresistible.”

“HBO was the perfect creative family for ‘Eastbound & Down,’ and we’re excited to pack up the van for the next adventure,” notes McBride. “When the idea for the new series became too crazy to keep to ourselves, we knew HBO was the perfect place to unleash it,” says executive producer David Gordon Green.

Created by Danny McBride and Jody Hill, who we re also the creators of “ Eastbound & Down,” VICE PRINCIPALS tells the story of a high school and the people who almost run it, the vice principals.

Concluding its four-season run on HBO in 2013, “Eastbound & Down” starred McBride as irrepressible former major league pitcher Kenny Powers.

VICE PRINCIPALS is executive produced by Danny McBride, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green and Stephanie Laing, who were also executive producers of “Eastbound & Down.”

 

[Tucah]

HBO PR:

Excellent news. I loved Eastbound and Down but I'm glad they're moving on to something new and I like that they already have the number of episodes set. Can't wait.

 

[TheOddOne]

Day uno.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Is this the one they were trying to get Lindsay Lohan to star in?

 

[Steelyuhas]

HBO PR:

Can't wait.

 

[TheOddOne]

Casting news, but the show is taking shape at least.

- THR: Peter Fonda Joins AMC's Ridley Scott Pilot 'Galyntine'

Peter Fonda has joined AMC pilot Galyntine as a series regular, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned. The actor also has signed with APA for representation in all areas.

Galyntine, a sci-fi fantasy set in a postapocalyptic future that has rejected all technology, hails from Ridley Scott's banner, Scott Free, which has a first-look deal with AMC. Scott will executive produce alongside Scott Free's David Zucker, The Walking Dead's Greg Nicotero and Halt & Catch Fire's Jason Cahill, who wrote the pilot.

Fonda will play Crawford, a handyman's shop owner who is described as a "grizzled, ultratraditionalist hard-ass with a sadistic streak and a simmering resentment" about no longer being a leader among his band of survivors. David Mackenzie (Starred Up, Perfect Sense) will direct the pilot, which also features The Shield alum Catherine Dent as another survivor.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Casting news, but the show is taking shape at least.

- THR: Peter Fonda Joins AMC's Ridley Scott Pilot 'Galyntine'

Kool, Peter Fonda!

David Mackenzie (Starred Up, Perfect Sense) will direct the pilot, which also features The Shield alum Catherine Dent as another survivor.

He's since dropped out and Greg Nicotero is going to be taking over pilot directing duties.

 

[TheOddOne]

He's since dropped out and Greg Nicotero is going to be taking over pilot directing duties.

Oh, not any notable directing credits but the guy is a FX legend.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

AMC Adapting Novel ‘The Son’ As Drama Series With ‘Hemlock Grove’ Creators

AMC is developing The Son, a drama series based on the best-selling 2013 novel by Philipp Meyer.

The Son, is a multi-generational epic telling the story of America’s birth as a superpower through the bloody rise and fall of one Texas oil empire. The project, originally intended as an event series, sparked interest from multiple networks.

Cool premise. Hemlock Grove creators. :/

Darren Aronofsky Adapting Futuristic ‘MaddAddam’ Book Trilogy As HBO Series

The project, based on Margaret Atwood’s book trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), Year Of The Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), is being developed as a potential directing vehicle for Aronofsky.

The story in the MaddAddam books, part of Atwood’s self-described genre of “speculative fiction,” is set in the mid-21st century in a world where corporations have taken over for governments and the genetic modification of organisms is perversely ubiquitous. It centers on the events before and after a Waterless Flood that wipes out almost all of the world’s population and follows an extensive cast of characters, including those responsible for the apocalypse and those struggling to survive it.

Sounds...ambitious.

 

[beat]

Very funny web video / sketch duo BriTANick get an order from Comedy Central!

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/06/another-web-series-for-comedy-central-coming-soon.html

#KentAlterman4President #teamCC #teamAlterman

Seriously, CC is on a hell of a hot streak right now.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

HBO Developing Texas Politics Drama

HBO has put in development God Save Texas, a drama series project written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda And The Road To 9/11) and executive produced by X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner.

It centers on an idealistic cowboy who, looking to save his ranch and marriage, tries to get elected to the Texas Legislature, where he becomes the target of the powerful energy lobby and learns how to survive in the crazy, brutal world of Texas politics.

Texas!

 

[TheOddOne]

- Variety: Bryan Cranston Developing ‘Dangerous Book for Boys’ TV Series

Bryan Cranston’s Moon Shot Entertainment is getting down to business in developing television projects through his Moon Shot Entertainment banner.

The “Breaking Bad” star’s company has optioned the rights to Conn and Hal Iggulden’s “The Dangerous Book for Boys” with plans to develop it as a comedy series. Moon Shot has a first-look pact with Sony Pictures TV, where Cranston worked for five seasons on “Breaking Bad.”

Series will follow three boys as they use their imaginations to navigate growing up without a father. Cranston is working on the project with Moon Shot exec James Degus.

“Dangerous Book for Boys” is a collection of tongue-in-cheek stories and how-to passages designed to help boys of the digital age embrace the importance of maintaining a spirit of adventure and learn how to do everything from climbing trees to building go-karts to palming coins. The book became a bestseller in the U.K. in 2006 and has since been adapted for the U.S. and other markets.

“Dangerous Book” was optioned for a film adaptation by Scott Rudin’s banner in 2007, but the project never got off the ground.

Moon Shot is focused on producing drama and comedy series for broadcast and cable networks. There’s no word yet on a writer to adapt the “Dangerous Book” series treatment. Cranston has said his goal with Moon Shot is to look for unusual perspectives and storytelling techniques.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

- Variety: Bryan Cranston Developing ‘Dangerous Book for Boys’ TV Series

This sounds awesome.

 

[Cornballer]

- Deadline: FX Drama Pilot ‘Hoke’ Not Going Forward

FX has passed on Hoke, its drama pilot starring and executive produced by Paul Giamatti. Written, directed and executive produced by Scott Frank, the project told the story of midlife crisis and murder that features the hardboiled and possibly insane homicide detective Hoke Moseley (Gianatti) in pre-chic Miami circa 1985. Robert Wisdom, Tammy Blanchard and John Carroll Lynch co-starred. While FX picked up some nine comedy pilots over the past year as it is ramping up comedy-centric sibling FXX, the network only ordered three drama pilots, Hoke as well as Tyrant and The Strain, both of which had series commitments and went to series. On the drama side, FX also is making a push in limited/event series with such programs as Fargo.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

I never thought that sounded very interesting anyway.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Xbox Developing Supernatural Bro Comedy

I’ve learned that Xbox Studios has put another project in development, scripted comedy East Of Exurbia. Written by Nick Kreiss and Ian Wolterstorff, the project revolves around three guys who try to build a bastion of bro-fueled debauchery in a house that happens to be situated on top of a magical portal to other worlds. The show, inspired by “one of the worst roommate stories ever told,” originally appeared on BroBible.com.

 

[TheOddOne]

Bro, no. Bro.

 

[TheOddOne]

-Deadline: Imagine TV To Develop Robert Baer’s New Book On Assassination As Cable Series

Imagine TV‘s Brian Grazer has optioned The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins, the upcoming book by decorated CIA agent Robert B. Baer, whose portrayal in Syriana, an adaptation of his book See No Evil, earned George Clooney an Oscar. The drama project, titled The Perfect Kill, is geared for cable. It has been grazerset up at Fox 21, the cable division of 20th Century Fox TV where Imagine TV has an overall deal. Imagine’s Grazer and Francie Calfo executive produce. In the book, set to publish in October, Baer chronicles the history of assassination as a political tool and outlines his rules for an effective kill.

 

[WarrenMax007]

- NikkiFinke.com: Cameron Crowe working on a Showtime comedy pilot "Roadies".

This would have to be truly awful not to get a series order. JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot is on the verge of announcing production of a Pay TV pilot for a Showtime series created by Cameron Crowe and run by Winnie Holzman. It’s an ensemble comedy set during a U.S. rock tour and tentatively titled Roadies. Crowe will direct the pilot before the end of the year.

YES. I wanted tv show set in the rock world for a long time. Comedy about rock tour? Even better,

 

[Clevinger]

Is HBO still making that Rashida Jones nail salon noir show?

Or was that just a weird dream I had?

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Is HBO still making that Rashida Jones nail salon noir show?

Or was that just a weird dream I had?

I'm not sure if it's still in development. I haven't heard anything about it in over a year.

 

[TheOddOne]

- Empire: Cameron Crowe Rounds Up Roadies

He brought the world of touring rockers to vivid life in Almost Famous, so it seems only natural for Cameron Crowe to be exploring another facet of that world for his first real stab at a TV series. He’s teaming with J.J. Abrams’ company to make a pilot currently called Roadies for US cable channel Showtime.

The show, which is described by Nikki Finke as an ensemble comedy set during a US rock band’s tour, is now in development, with Crowe planning to direct the pilot before the year is out. Few other details are available yet, but Abrams’ Bad Robot gang is involved. That doesn’t mean Abrams himself will be directly working on the show – he’s a little busy on a certain big franchise project right now – but chances are he’ll at least offer any assistance he can provide.

While Crowe will be creating the series, thirtysomething / My So-Called Life / Once And Again writing / producing veteran Winnie Holzman (who coincidentally appeared in a tiny role in Crowe’s Jerry Maguire) will handle the day-to-day running of the series should Showtime pick It up. We’d say there’s a healthy chance at this point, though even with Abrams’ company aboard, there’s no guarantee of success: all the new shows he lent his name to this year, including Believe and Almost Human, were cancelled.

Crowe, meanwhile, is busy finishing his latest, as-yet-untitled romantic drama, which stars Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams. That one will arrive on UK screens on March 13 next year.

 

[TheOddOne]

Starz wants more nudity. Who can blame 'em.

-The Wrap: Starz Orders ‘Girlfriend Experience’ Series From Steven Soderbergh

Philip Fleishman will also serve as an executive producer on the series based on the 2009 film

Starz has ordered 13 half-hour episodes of the television series “The Girlfriend Experience” from Transactional Pictures and executive producers Steven Soderbergh and Philip Fleishman.

Based on Soderbergh's 2009 film of the same name, “The Girlfriend Experience” will be a 13-part anthology written and directed by independent filmmakers Lodge Kerrigan, who has directed episodes of “The Killing,” “The Americans,” and “Bates Motel,” among others, and Amy Seimetz, a writer, producer and actress best known for being a series regular on “The Killing” and her recurring role on HBO's “Family Tree.” Kerrigan and Seimetz will also serve as executive producers.

The series will explore the world of modern courtesans — the prostitutes, concubines or mistresses of powerful or high-ranking men — and how they provide their clients with more than just sex. Their relationships can become intimate, romantic, with the women become the men's confidantes in many cases.

More at link.

 

[Dan]

Hmm, not sure there's that much dramatic value in seeing a different escort situation each week. The Girlfriend Experience was alright, but Soderbergh's non-linear storytelling and other aesthetic choices went a long way.

I like what I know of Lodge Kerrigan however. He gave Damian Lewis a great starring role in Keane.

 

[Cornballer]

- NY Mag: Judd Apatow's Next TV Comedy Could Be For Hulu and Gillian Jacobs Might Be In It

A pilot script for the project, tentatively called Love, has already been co-written by Apatow, Brooklyn Nine-Nine writer Lesley Arfin and actor/writer Paul Rust (Super Fun Night). Rust is attached to co-star, and there’s talk that Community star Gillian Jacobs — who has a recurring role on season four of the Apatow-produced Girls — has also been approached to star. (One possible stumbling block: Jacobs is locked into Community, at least through Monday; if Sony and NBC find a way to save the show, things could get awkward. Unless, that is, Hulu ends up with Community, though reports say it won't.) Assuming the deal closes — and it has not — we also hear Brent Forrester, a veteran of The Simpsons and The Office who also worked with Apatow on his late, great and short-lived Fox series Undeclared, is being eyed to serve as a co-showrunner.

 

[TheOddOne]

- Deadline: Universal TV, David S. Goyer Eye ‘Snowblind’ Limited Series

Universal Television and David S. Goyer have optioned TV rights to horror novel Snowblind, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden (Ghosts Of Albion, Joe Golem And The Drowning City). The New England-set book, published earlier this year by St. Martin’s Press, tracks the denizens of a town still reeling from the disappearance of more than a dozen people who were snatched during a sinister snowstorm 12 years prior.

Goyer is coming off of Da Vinci’s Demons and Man of Steel and will supervise development and executive produce alongside Golden and Pete Donaldson. Project is being developed as a limited series. Snowblind also comes with a choice celebrity endorsement from horror maven Stephen King: “Snowblind is instantly involving and deeply scary. It will bring a blizzard to your bones (and your heart) even in the middle of July. Throw away all those old ‘it was a dark and stormy night’ novels; this one is the real deal. And watch out for that last page. It’s a killer.”

Snowblind marks Golden’s latest work to get the screen treatment. His Joe Golem And The Drowning City, co-written with Mike Mignola, is at Constantin Films with Alex Proyas attached to direct for Donaldson Media and Gotham Entertainment, while last year WB took pre-emptive rights to Golden’s Tin Men, which Chernin Entertainment and Donaldson Media are producing. Goyer is repped by WME and Bloom Hergott. Golden is repped by manager-producer Donaldson, Howard Morhaim of the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and attorney Adam Rosen at One LLP.

People disappearing is the new hotness.

 

[TheOddOne]

BASED BRYAN FULLER.

- The Wrap: Starz Is Developing Neil Gaiman's ‘American Gods’ With Bryan Fuller, Michael Green

FremantleMedia North America will produce the series

Starz is developing a series based on Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel, “American Gods,” with executive producers Gaiman, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green. FremantleMedia North America will produce the series.

“‘American Gods’ is a project that deserves to be made. With our partners at FremantleMedia and with Bryan, Michael and Neil, we believe we can create a series that honors the book and does right by the fans and viewers,” said Starz's managing director, Carmi Zlotnik, in a statement.

Fuller will write the pilot and Green will serve as the series’ showrunner.

More at link.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

BASED BRYAN FULLER.

- The Wrap: Starz Is Developing Neil Gaiman's ‘American Gods’ With Bryan Fuller, Michael Green

More at link.

HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN THANK YOU

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Where were you guys yesterday?

 

[RatskyWatsky]

FXX Orders 10 Episodes Of Jay Baruchel Starrer ‘Man Seeking Woman’

FXX has ordered 10 episodes of half-hour comedy Man Seeking Woman, from Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video. It’s slated for a 2015 premiere.

Jay Baruchel stars in the project based on Simon Rich’s book The Last Girlfriend On Earth, Man Seeking Woman. It centers on Josh Greenberg (Baruchel) a naive romantic on a desperate quest for love. When his longtime girlfriend dumps him, Josh enters the dating scene, a nightmarish hellscape of untold horror. Despite the agony, Josh continues his search in the hopes of finding someone who will make all the misery worth it.

FXX lives!

 

[CreeperBlocks]

Seth Rogan begins working on the Pilot to Preacher for AMC

 

[beat]

Is HIMYD dead or is Fox still trying to find a buyer?

 

[RatskyWatsky]

IFC Orders Spoils of Babylon Offshoot

IFC has ordered The Spoils Before Dying, a new six-episode saga to be told in the Funny Or Die style of this past winter’s The Spoils of Babylon.

Executive producer Will Ferrell will reprise his role as Eric Jonrosh, the author-director-writer who teed up each episode, while a new cast will dramatize this look at “the seedy underbelly of the 1950s jazz scene, in a detective story positively buzzing with erotic charge.” The new Spoils centers around a “jazz-pianist turned private eye who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that spins out of control and leads him down paths — romantic and otherwise — he never expected.”

The Spoils Before Dying will bow in summer 2015.

 

[TheOddOne]

- Variety: Gillian Flynn’s ‘Sharp Objects’ Being Developed for TV With Marti Noxon, Jason Blum

Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn has yet another adaptation in the pipeline. Her debut novel “Sharp Objects” is being developed as a one-hour serialized drama with Marti Noxon on board as showrunner and writer and Blumhouse Productions’ Jason Blum and Charles Layton to executive produce.

Entertainment One Television will develop and produce with Flynn serving as an executive producer. Blumhouse Productions will also produce.

Spoiler

“Sharp Objects” follows a reporter who has to cover the murder of two preteen girls in her hometown following a brief stint in a psych hospital.

The novel has won two of Britain’s Dagger Awards and was an Edgar Award finalist.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

- Variety: Gillian Flynn’s ‘Sharp Objects’ Being Developed for TV With Marti Noxon, Jason Blum

Sounds like a really unique and fresh concept!

 

[TheOddOne]

Sounds like a really unique and fresh concept!

A serial killer series where people disappear off the face of the earth that will be in the scale of Game Of Thrones in complexity.

Talk to me, Fox.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

BBC America Announces Last Kingdom Adaptation of Bernard Cornwell Novels

Set in the year 872, when many of the separate kingdoms of what we now know as England have fallen to the invading Vikings, the great kingdom of Wessex has been left standing alone and defiant under the command of King Alfred the Great.

Against this turbulent backdrop lives our hero, Uhtred. Born the son of a Saxon nobleman, he is orphaned by the Vikings and then kidnapped and raised as one of their own. Forced to choose between the country of his birth and the people of his upbringing, his loyalties are ever tested. What is he – Saxon or Viking? On a quest to claim his birthright, Uhtred must tread a dangerous path between both sides if he is to play his part in the birth of a new nation and, ultimately, seek to recapture his ancestral lands.

 

[Norwegian Rudo]

Lifetime orders a Clan Of The Cave Bear pilot, with Ron Howard producing.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

BBC AMERICA Announces New Drama Series Tatau

The drama follows, Kyle Connor and Pete ‘Budgie’ Griffiths, two twenty-something friends from London that set off to travel the world. They’ve worked hard, saved even harder and they’re now eager to soak up as many different cultures and experiences as possible. Ahead of the journey, Kyle gets a Maori-style tattoo to celebrate their eventual destination: the Cook Islands. But upon his arrival in the South Pacific, Kyle is unsettled by the local people’s reaction to his tattoo – it clearly has a significance that he is entirely unaware of. Later, while snorkeling in a lagoon, Kyle discovers the dead body of a local girl, Aumea, tied up underwater. When he returns with the police, the corpse has disappeared. Budgie questions if his friend is going mad, but Kyle begins to believe that he has instead seen into the future. Kyle and Budgie find themselves sucked into a desperate race to prevent Aumea’s murder, as Kyle learns that his gifts don’t stop at prophecy… and the full meaning of the tattoo is soon revealed. Tatau is an ambitious drama that explores the questions of identity, love and destiny.

 

[TheOddOne]

I'm going to keep saying "Bungie" instead of "Budgie" during the course of that series, because videogames.

Edit: Deadline: Syfy Orders ‘The Magicians’ Pilot Based On Lev Grossman Fantasy Books

Syfy has greenlighted a pilot for The Magicians, an adaptation of Lev Grossman’s best-selling fantasy book trilogy. The pilot for the potential one-hour drama, from Universal Cable Productions, was written by John McNamara (Prime Suspect) and Sera Gamble (Supernatural). Michael London and Janice Williams are producing.

The books — the first of which was published in 2009 —

Spoiler

revolve around a group of New York twentysomethings who, while studying magic, discover the fantasy wMagiciansorld they read about as children is all too real and poses a grave danger to humanity

. The trilogy — The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician’s Land – has been published in 22 countries.

This isn’t the first crack at the small screen for the books. In October 2011, a drama series adaptation was pre-emptively acquired by Fox – also produced by London, who had optioned the books. It had X-Men: First Class and Thor writers Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz aboard to do the writing but didn’t go forward. Grossman at the time wrote on his blog he was disappointed the project didn’t stick but that it would be shopped to cable networks.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

AMC Orders Martial Arts Drama Badlands from Smallville EPs

The network on Friday announced a six-episode, straight-to-series order for martial arts drama Badlands.

Loosely based on Journey to the West, a Chinese novel from the 16th century, Badlands follows a warrior and a boy who team up for an adventure “across a dangerous land to find enlightenment.”

Set to premiere in late 2015 or early 2016, Badlands was created by showrunners/writers Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville), both of whom will executive-produce.

I bet everyone will be white.