The fall TV season just started this week and ABC is already looking to Next season.
The Disney-backed broadcast network has handed an official pilot order to an untitled drama from The Martian and daredevil former Drew Goddard.
The project is based on the popular French series High Intellectual Potential (HPI) and has Goddard attached to write via his rich overall deal with Disney. The potential series revolves around a single mother with three children and an exceptional mind who helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a housekeeper for the police department. When they discover that she has a knack for putting things in order due to her high intellectual potential, she is hired as a consultant to work with a seasoned detective, and together they form an unusual and unstoppable team.
Goddard will write and execute production alongside Sarah Esberg of Goddard Textiles, along with Pierre Laugier, Anthony Lancret and Jean Nainchrik. This last trio produces HPI.
The Goddard drama is the network’s first order as part of its 2023-24 pilot crop. ABC, like other broadcast networks, has moved to a year-round development model closer to cable and streaming. Such a change, largely prompted by the pandemic, allows broadcast networks to take more time with scripts, skipping casting and other factors that fall outside the old five-month window in which they previously attempted to launch and film nearly 100 pilots. The overall volume of pilots has dropped significantly, as the financial costs to the Big Four of producing more than 30 comedies and dramas each season are no longer sustainable as media conglomerates shift their spending to streaming.
Writer, producer and director Goddard’s TV credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, AKA, Lost and The right place.
