Bill Lawrence - H 2014
Courtesy of WBTVThe CW on Tuesday doubled its pilot orders, handing out pickups to a pair of dramedies from established producers and starring a Pretty Little Liars breakout.
Ordered to pilot are Bill Lawrence’s Life Sentence — with PLL’s Lucy Hale attached to star — and Ryan Seacrest’s Insatiable, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Life Sentence takes place when a young woman (Hale) diagnosed with terminal cancer finds out that she’s not dying after all and has to learn to live with the choices she made when she decided to “live like she was dying.”
Related Stories
The project hails from Warner Bros. Television and Lawrence’s studio-based Doozer Productions. Lawrence and Doozer topper Jeff Ingold will executive produce alongside Significant Mother duo Erin Cardillo and Rich Keith, with the latter two on board to pen the script. This marks the first dramedy to land at The CW from Warner Bros. Television and arrives after the network has found success with female-skewing dramedies Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, with both of those produced by CBS Television Studios.
Hale is repped by ICM Partners and Reel Talent Management. The role marks her first series-regular gig following the upcoming end of the Freeform soap Pretty Little Liars.
Life Sentence is Lawrence’s second pilot order of the season and joins NBC’s single-camera workplace comedy Spaced Out. The project also brings Cardillo and Keith back to The CW following its CW Seed-turned-summer comedy Significant Mother.
Insatiable, meanwhile, centers on a disgraced, dissatisfied civil lawyer turned beauty pageant coach who takes on a vengeful, bullied teenager as his client and has no idea what he’s about to unleash upon the world.
Dexter alum Lauren Gussis will pen the script. (She previously teamed with Ryan Murphy for his HBO drama pilot Open.) The project hails from Ryan Seacrest Productions’ overall deal with CBS Television Studios. Seacrest will executive produce alongside RSP’s Nina Wass and Andrea Shay; Todd Hoffman and Dennis Kim are also attached as executive producers.
Tuesday’s pickups bring The CW’s total pilot haul to four. They join Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Dynasty revival as well as Greg Berlanti/Jason Rothenberg’s Searchers. Last year, The CW picked up six pilots, with network president Mark Pedowitz telling THR earlier this month that he expected to have the same tally this go-around. The CW’s pickups this year are evenly divided between CBS Television Studios (Dynasty, Insatiable) and Warner Bros. Television (Searchers, Life Sentence). Missing from the list is the high-profile Charmed revival, which remains in contention.
Keep track of the latest news and castings at THR.com/PilotSeason and bookmark THR‘s handy guide.
