In its first development season since focusing on primetime TV with a first-look deal at Sony TV and the hire of CBS' Robert Zotnowski as TV head, Sam Raimi and Joshua Donen's Stars Road Entertainment has sold 3 hourlong projects to 3 networks, Fox, ABC and CBS.
While the company plans to develop across all TV, the the primary focus leading into its first year "was to find early success (on broadcast)," said Zotnowski, who was SVP drama at CBS, co-heading the network's drama department before he left in August 2009 to join Stars Road. The auspices involved in the company's 3 series projects, all produced by Sony TV, represent a mix of existing relationships Zotnowski has with TV writers and feature and comic book talent brought in by Raimi.
The ABC project hails from Dee Johnson, with whom Zotnowski worked on The Good Wife. Last year, Johnson served as executive producer/showrunner on the first 13 episodes of the CBS legal drama. The new project centers on a top female prosecutor in Los Angeles, whom Zotnowski describes as a "female vigilante with a law license."
The Fox project, Smokers, comes from comic book and TV writer Brian K. Vaughan, best known for creating the comic book series Y: The Last Man, and for his work as a writer on ABC's Lost. The high-concept drama, based on an original idea by Vaughan, is about a documentary crew following working class heroes who exterminate alien threats in deep space.
The third project, set at Zotnowski's former home, CBS, is Lancaster, from writer Andrew Lipsitz (CSI, CSI:NY). It centers on a Scotland yard detective who joins the LAPD. With broadcast selling season wrapping up, Stars Road is turning its sights on cable where it plans to pitch next.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sam Raimi's Stars Road Sets 3 TV Projects
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