ABC’s New Pilot Order Includes the Oren Peli/Steven Spielberg Collaboration The River

Steve Barton |

Feb 1, 2011

ABC is certainly not skimping when it comes to ordering up new pilots as today the network greenlit 6 new ones, 3 of which sound like they fit into the genre at least partially, including horror/drama “The River”, which Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli is executive producing with his partners Jason Blum and Steven Schneider as well as DreamWorks TV’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey.

ABC Here are the series’ synopses according to Deadline:

After a bidding war, “The River”, a horror drama in the mold of Paranormal Activity about a family who travels to the deep Amazon to locate and rescue their missing father, landed at ABC in September with a big put pilot commitment. Paranormal Activity writer-director Oren Peli wrote the first draft with Michael Perry, writer of the Paranormal Activity 2 sequel. After ABC was not quite happy with the script, “Heroes” veteran and “Kings” creator Michael Green did a p.1 rewrite, which the network now greenlighted. This is the third pilot for DreamWorks TV this season, along with “Smash” at NBC and “Locke & Key” at Fox.

“Once Upon a Time” from “Lost” executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, which has “Lost” co-creator/exec producer Damon Lindelof attached, centers on a woman with a troubled past who is drawn into a small town in Maine where the magic and mystery of fairy tales just may be real. It is not clear yet if Lindelof will be a consultant or executive producer on the pilot, in whose development he has been involved alongside creators Kitsis and Horowitz, who serve as exec producers. Magical/fairy tale pilots are red-hot this season with “Once Upon a Time” joining NBC’s “Grimm” and “17th Precinct”.

Marc Cherry’s “Hallelujah” is set in the town of Hallelujah, Tenn., which is being torn apart by the forces of good and evil. Its fortunes change when a stranger comes to town, bringing justice, peace and faith. In addition to writing his first script since creating “Desperate Housewives”, Cherry is exec producing. This marks the first production order for Cherry and Sabrina Wind’s new production banner Wind Prods.

The other three pilots aren’t horror-related, but just to keep you guys in the loop, here are brief descriptions of each: “Identity”, written by Eagle Eye scribe John Glenn, is based on an ITV/ITV Studio format and centers on an Identity Theft Unit; “Revenge”, written by “Swingtown” creator Mike Kelley, is a contemporary re-imagining of The Count of Monte Cristo that explores the classic tale from a female perspective; and “Good Christian Bitches”, based on Kim Gatlin’s book of the same name, centers on Amanda Vaughn, a recently divorced mother of two who moves back to the affluent Dallas neighborhood where she grew up to find herself in the whirling midst of salacious gossip, Botox, and fraud. Now that is scary indeed!

Keep it here for more as it comes!

– Uncle Creepy

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