AMC has found itself an Oscar winner to helm Line of Sight.
Jonathan Demme has been tapped to direct the cable network’s sci-fi drama pilot, from Brotherhood‘s Blake Masters. The hourlong effort, which is being billed as a “genre-bending odyssey,” is centered on a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator, Lewis Bernt, who survives a mysterious plane crash.
More specifically, Sight is the story of Bernt’s search to find out what happened to him. He becomes a man whose world as he knows it unravels in a whirlwind of obsession and paranoia. Production on the Fox TV Studios/AMC Studios-produced pilot is set to begin later this year, with Masters set to write and executive produce. Demme, too, will serve as an EP.
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For Demme, the project marks a continued push into television. In addition to directing a few episodes of HBO’s critical darling Enlightened, he served as a director and executive producer on CBS’ short-lived drama, A Gifted Man, starring Patrick Wilson as a self-absorbed surgeon who starts questioning his purpose in life when he’s visited by the spirit of his deceased ex-wife.
Still, he is best known for his directorial work for the big screen, where he has helmed such films as The Silence of the Lambs, which earned him an Academy Award, Philadelphia and Rachel Getting Married.
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Sight was greenlighted to pilot in late April, a week or so after AMC unveiled its slate, which included a Breaking Bad talk-show companion Talking Bad and seven scripted efforts in development. Other pilots at AMC include Ballistic City and Halt & Catch Fire.
Demme, whose other credits include The Manchurian Candidate, Beloved and The Truth About Charlie, is repped by WME and Lichter Grossman.
Email: Lacey.Rose@THR.com; Twitter: @LaceyVRose
