Pilot season is heating up, with Fox ordering The Exorcist from 20th Century Fox Television and Morgan Creek Productions. Jeremy Slater, James Robinson, David Robinson and Barbara Wall are exec producers on the “modern reinvention” of the 1971 thriller novel.
NBC has scored the pilot for Miranda’s Rights, a “legal soap” from Katie Lovejoy and John Glenn. Universal Television/John Glenn Entertainment are the production outfits on the project. NBC also ordered Midnight Texas, from Universal Television/David Janollari Entertainment, which the network describes as Twin Peaks meets True Blood, with vampire, witches and werewolves. Janollari and Monica Owusu-Breen are exec producers.
NBC’s buys also include an untitled Amy Poehler/Charlie Grandy single-cam comedy about a black sheep son returning home to compete with his brother for the throne. UTV/Paper Kite/3 Arts is producing the project. The Trail is a serialized comedy about a young big-city lawyer and his oddball team during a high-profile murder trial. That’s from Barge Productions and Good Session Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, with Jeff Astrof and Matt Miller as exec producers. Good Fortune, meanwhile, is an ensemble comedy about a woman taking advice from a fortune teller to heart. That’s from 20th and Le Train Train, with Craig Gerard, Matt Zinman, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack producing.
CBS, for its part, has bought the comedy Superior Donuts from Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, Bob Daily, Mark Teitelbaum and John Montgomery. Based on the play by Tracy Letts, it’s produced at CBS Television Studios. It also grabbed drama Bunker Hill from Jason Katims and Michelle Lee. Produced by Universal Television in association with CBS Television Studios, the pilot follows a young Silicon Valley titan who enlists a veteran surgeon with a controversial past to start a new hospital.
