TV Sales & Pick-Ups

CBS has picked up TV rights to the book THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF A TERRIBLE DATER, written by Susan Brightbill, which it will develop as a 1/2 hour sitcom with Sheldon Turner and Jennifer Klein. Series will center on a single woman in Chicago as she navigates the adult dating world.

ABC has beat out NBC in a HEATED BIDDING WAR today, to grab the rights to Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli’s new series THE RIVER. The project which Peli will eye towards directing, will be written by TB favorite, and Paranormal Activity 2 scribe Michael R. Perry. Peli, Perry, Jason Blum, Steven Schneider, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey will executive produce.

In the afterglow of winning the Emmy for outstanding reality series, the Ryan Seacrest Productions and Fresh One show, Jamie Oliver’s FOOD REVOLUTION has been picked up for a second season.

Marc Guggenheim and writer Jennifer Robinson have set up a new serialized UNTITLED EVENT DRAMA at ABC. Series, which will see its pilot directed by Gary Fleder, will focus on the White House Office of Crisis Management as they deal with global catastrophes. It is planned for each season to follow a different crisis, after the first kicks off aboard a doomed international space station.

CBS has jumped into the Sam Raimi business, snatching up a hot pitch entitled LANCASTER, which Raimi will produce and Andrew Lipsitz will write. The series is said to follow a Scotland Yard Detective who transfers to the LAPD.

Fox has put in a 12-episode order of the new half hour sketch comedy series by Jamie Foxx tentatively called THE JAMIE FOXX PROJECT. The show will star Affion Crockett and other young, rising comedians, who will spoof pop culture related items. Foxx/King Entertainment and The Tannenbaum Co. are producing the series.

SyFy has picked up NEVERLAND, from writer/director Nick Willing with the plan to make it a four hour event mini-series, as it did with previous Willing projects ALICE and TIN MAN. The series will play as a prequel to J.M. Barrie’s PETER PAN.

NBC Universal has committed to a new drama project from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA producer, Ronald D. Moore. The new series is pitched as an adult HARRY POTTER where the world is ruled by magic instead of science.

Warner Bros. Television has snatched up the TV rights to Neil Gaiman’s comic book series “SANDMAN.” The series, has firmly established itself as one of the most renowned works in the medium, having been in some form of film development for almost 20 years (the series first began in 1989).

But, now WB, alongside DC Comics (who published the book via their “Vertigo” imprint and will produce the TV series) sees a very bright future in the series, and is in talks with Eric Kripke, the creator of the CW’s “Supernatural,†to possibly take a stab at adapting. While “Supernatural” and “Sandman” in my opinion are at opposite ends of the spectrum, I think the type of show I’d love Sandman to be, isn’t necessarily one that would rake in viewers, so I’ll wait to pass any judgement until we’re much farther down the road.

Prior to WB’s involvement on the TV side, DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show, with Mangold even meeting with Gaiman to discuss the series as a whole, but after a long dormant hiatus due to scheduling issues, that never came to be.

The story of “Sandman†began with Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming realm, a deity who personifies dreams, and could work and alter your dreams as he see fit. As he series continued we met the rest of his family, a group who were the bearers of a majority of humanity’s darker emotions; Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium, and Morpheus’ real name – Dream.

LOCKE & KEY has gone through almost every media platform before finding a home that has not only bought it (third sale) but has confirmed to shoot it.

As we reported a little over a week ago, the project, based on the Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son) graphic novel, was originally set up as a film. After busy schedules, and a sluggish move through development, the team decided on a new outlook, with producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman went for some heavies, bringing on Steven Spielberg to produce alongside them, and Josh Friedman to pen a TV pilot. And, lets be honest, any TV project with those 5 names on it, is already on a level echelons above any other spec pilot.

And that is precisely what Fox thought, snatching up the pilot today, with a commitment to shoot the pilot, and a hefty penalty if the series does not air.

So, ratchet the number of Steven Spileberg TV shows on Fox in 2011 to two, with LOCKE & KEY joining TERRA NOVA.