Marti Noxon’s ‘Dietland’ Adaptation Lands at AMC With Eye Toward Series Order

In a competitive situation, AMC is headed for Dietland.

AMC has landed Marti Noxon’s TV adaptation of Sarai Walker’s novel Dietland, with an eye toward picking it up to series in 2017, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Under AMC’s new “script-to-series” development model — in which it bypasses the traditional pilot model — the cabler has opened up a writers’ room. In success, Dietland will be considered for a series production order in 2017. 

Produced by Skydance Television, Dietland is the first project to come from Noxon’s seven-figure, three-year deal with the studio. The property was the subject of a multiple-network bidding war with HBO, Netflix and TV Land all vying for it, with the latter eyeing the series as its first scripted drama.

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Dietland is described as part coming-of-age story and part revenge fantasy. The potential series is set against the backdrop of the beauty industry and explores society’s obsession with weight loss and beauty in a bold, original and funny fashion.

Noxon will pen the script, executive produce and serve as showrunner. Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross also will exec produce alongside Noxon’s Tiny Pyro topper Maria Grasso as well as Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn of Mockingbird Pictures.

Dietland comes at a busy time for Noxon. The prolific producer — one of THR‘s annual Power Showrunners — is currently in production on three back-to-back seasons of Bravo’s Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce and has HBO’s Sharp Objects, starring Amy Adams, due up before she can tackle Dietland. She’s also juggling two features, The Glass Castle and To the Bone, the latter of which she directed. Noxon also helped launch Lifetime’s UnREAL, where she remains credited as an exec producer. Noxon’s TV credits also include CBS’ Code Black, Mad Men, Glee and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Skydance TV’s credits include Netflix’s Altered Carbon, Amazon’s upcoming Jack Ryan and WGN America’s late and great Manhattan. 

For AMC, fresh off its highly rated Walking Dead season seven opener, Dietland becomes the cable network’s latest drama. Should it likely move to series, it would join a male-skewing roster of originals that also includes Fear the Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, Into the Badlands, Humans and Preacher as well as the upcoming The Terror, The Son and Lodge 49.  The cabler, which has the final seasons of both Turn as well as Halt and Catch Fire, has largely abandoned the traditional pilot process (save for Preacher) in favor of developing shows with multiple scripts and forming a writers’ room early on with an eye for going straight to series.

Noxon is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson; Walker, who published Dietland last year, is repped by Gersh and Jean V. Naggar Literay Agency for publishing.