TNT Orders John Wells Mystery Thriller ‘Deep Mad Dark’ to Pilot

TNT and John Wells are joining forces yet again.

The Turner cable network has ordered a pilot for the mystery thriller The Deep Mad Dark from the Animal Kingdom executive producer, it was announced Monday.

The pilot, which will be written Animal Kingdom scribe Megan Martin, opens as Detroit neurosurgeon Polly Lewis begins an unorthodox study in the field of memory and trauma. Her once closest friend — the irreverent, brilliant Tash Hollander — comes home after living many years in a strange, off-the-grid community in Belize. Upon her return, Tash insinuates herself into Polly’s life in audacious ways that threaten everything Polly has achieved. But it remains to be seen what Tash’s motivations are.

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The drama is described as a “propulsive, layered mystery about an intoxicating friendship and how it leads to a brutal act of violence that drives two women in radically different ways.” Set in modern Detroit, the project explores the power certain friendships have to shape who we are — in ways both good and bad.

Martin and Wells will executive produce with Fabrik Entertainment CEO Henrik Bastin (Bosch) and Kristen Campo (The Killing). John Wells Productions and Fabrik Entertainment will produce in association with Warner Horizon Television and Turner’s Studio T.

In addition to Wells’ TV adaptation of Animal Kingdom, which was one of the first drama series to premiere as part of TNT’s network rebranding, the prolific producer also is exec producing a drama pilot for the cabler, Hinges, which hails from writer Janine Sherman Barrois and also counts Anthony Hemingway (The People vs. O.J. Simpson) as an exec producer. Wells also was an exec producer on the cop drama Southland, which aired on TNT for four of its five-season run.

Wells’ other TV projects include Showtime’s Shameless and American Woman, which recently received a series order at TV Land.

In addition to The Deep Mad Dark, TNT’s other pilots include the nail salon dramedy Claws, the modern-day political drama Civil, Rod Lurie’s post-civil war drama Monsters of God, M. Night Shyamalan’s Time of Death, the Tim McGraw-starrer Robbers and adaptations of the films Snowpiercer and Let the Right One In.