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AMC has ordered two new drama series to its slate: Halt & Catch Fire and Turn.
The news of the period drama pickups was announced Friday afternoon at the summer Television Critics Association press tour by AMC president Charlie Collier. This marks the first time the cable network has picked up more than one series in the same cycle.
Production on both series begins in the fourth quarter this year with an eye for 2014 debuts.
Halt & Catch Fire, set in the early 1980s, revolves around the personal computing boom and is told through the eyes of one visionary and one engineer prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. Their partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas’ Silicon Prairie.
Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishe star in the effort, which hails from AMC Studios and Gran Via Productions. The series was created by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers with Breaking Bad‘s Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein on board as executive producers.
Turn, based on Alexander Rose‘s book Washington’s Spies, comes from Nikita‘s Craig Silverstein and is executive produced by Barry Josephson. Set during the summer of 1778, the drama centers on a New York farmer named Abe Woodhull, who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form the Culper Ring, a group of spies who turn the tide in America’s fight for independence.
Jamie Bell toplines the AMC Studios production, with Silverstein set to pen the project with Josephson executive producing through his Josephson Entertainment.
Halt & Catch Fire and Turn — ordered to pilot last November — join the upcoming AMC drama Low Winter Sun, which premieres Aug. 11, starring Mark Strong and Lennie James. The current scripted slate includes Mad Men, The Killing, Hell on Wheels (returning Aug. 10) and The Walking Dead.
AMC recently ordered sci-fi drama pilot Line of Sight, tapping Jonathan Demme to produce and direct.
E-mail: Philiana.Ng@THR.com
Twitter: @insidethetube
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