Knock ’em out, knock ’em out Guillermo!

Not a day after we covered Guillermo Del Toro hopping in bed with HBO to exec produce and direct their new true crime series Nutshell Studies, comes news that Del Toro has sold a pitch of his own design to FX, and that it’s ready to go to pilot!

The Strain is the first in a trilogy of novels Del Toro published with partner Chuck Hogan starting in 2009 about a vicious strain of very un-sexy vampires that spread across the Earth like a pandemic outbreak. The concept was originally a TV show pitch that got no heat and Del Toro and Hogan then morphed into the three-part prose series. Well now that the books have sold a few copies and the duo has plotted out enough material for several seasons of television, a small bidding war between cable networks have left Del Toro and Hogan with a big deal with FX to bring a new vampiric vision to the small screen.

The first episode will shoot this time next year as the script is finished over the next few months, with the pilot to be prepped while Del Toro finishes Pacific Rim and gets that blockbuster released next summer.

This is apparently the first time FX has bought a series off of a pitch in this manner, and the first actual TV greenlight Del Toro has gotten, despite the Nutshell and Hulk irons he has in the fire. The director feels he can get up to five seasons out of the concept, with an emphasis on the close-ended approach to the series.

“FX made the most sense, based on the level of commitment, passion and understanding of the concept of the book. They got behind the idea of making this a close-ended series; we wanted to follow the books closely and so it couldn’t be open-ended, but rather three to five seasons max.”

As I said yesterday, it’s an exciting field for Del Toro to be working in, especially with a concept that is wholly his and Hogan’s own. He agrees.

“Creatively [television] is the richest field to mine a long arc of character, and I follow about 13 of these series. Not only that, but I cast much of my movie, Pacific Rim, from it.”

It will be a while before we hear too much more from this, but 2013 is going to be a good year to be a Del Toro fan.

 

Source | Deadline