A Pile of Pilots: Green Lights for 666 Park Avenue, Rewind, and More

© William Morrow

There were updates this week on several intriguing sci-fi/fantasy pilots, collectively promising us a rich and supernatural future:

666 Park Avenue—I reported in September that Alloy Entertainment, the folks behind such steamy youth-oriented dramas as Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries, had put into development a pilot based on the supernatural novel by Gabriella Pierce about a transplanted young couple find themselves managing New York City apartment building where the residents have all made deals with the devil in order to have their dreams fulfilled. This week ABC announced it had greenlit the pilot, from Fringe and Life on Mars writer and co-executive producer David Wilcox. So far, no casting. Everyone's very curious to see how this turns out with suds-loving Alloy and the character-drama-oriented Wilcox behind it. Melrose Place of the Damned, perhaps?

Rewind—Syfy has greenlit a two-hour pilot for the time-travel series Rewind, written by Justin Marks (who has Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li behind him and who's also developing scripts for a number of action thrillers including Mark Wahlberg's The Raven) and co-produced by BermanBraun, the folks behind Alphas and The Cape. The basic idea involves a team of military field operatives and civilian scientists who must use untested technology to travel back in time to change past events to prevent a horrible terrorist attack. "Justin Marks has created a time-travel series with an exciting innovative approach that really exemplifies Syfy's commitment to bring compelling storytelling to life," said Syfy honcho Mark Stern. My question is, how will their time-travel technology idea stack up against Jake Gyllenhaal in a box?

Beauty and the Beast—The CW has decided to go ahead with that reboot of the 1987 series version of Beauty and the Beast, greenlighting a pilot that updates the original CBS show as a contemporary romantic story with a procedural angle. Jennifer Levin (Felicity) and Sherri Cooper (Brothers and Sisters) are the writers, and two of the producers from the original series—Paul Junger Witt and C. Anthony Thomas—are on board for the remake, which might signal an interest in maintaining some continuity with the show's original look and feel.

Green Arrow—Still at The CW, a pilot for a series version of Green Arrow has gotten the green light as well. The plan is for a modern retelling of the DC Comics hero's story, written by Andrew Kreisberg (Warehouse 13) and Marc Guggenheim (FlashForward, Eli Stone, Jack & Bobby) from a story by Greg Berlanti and Guggenheim and with all three as executive producers. A-list pilot wizard David Nutter is expected to direct. And no, Justin Hartley is not attached. In fact, since this is a retelling of the story rooted in the original comics, we shouldn't expect continuity with the Smallville version of Green Arrow in general, despite the series being at the same network—though it's probably safe to expect a cutesy cameo from Hartley somewhere down the road if Green Arrow goes to series.

Powers—When the superhero/police procedural Powers didn't show up on FX's schedule despite a ostensibly solid pilot in the can starring Jason Patric and Lucy Punch, those of us who were looking forward to the comic book adaptation feared the worst. But Powers is not dead, not yet. "We didn't pick the pilot of Powers up; we went back and Chick Eglee, who had written it, did a fairly substantial rewrite that would require pretty extensive reshoots of the pilot," FX president John Landgraf said earlier this month. "Right now we're in the process of deciding whether to pull the trigger on the reshoot." We should get a final decision in the next couple of months. Keep your fingers crossed, Powers fans.