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Sony Pictures Television has found a new home for Image/Icon comics adaptation Powers.
Following years of development, including a pilot at FX, video game console PlayStation has picked up the superhero drama straight to series, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Powers, based on Brian Michael Bendis‘ Image/Icon comic that revolves around a cop who works in the Powers division of the police force and deals with crimes involving those endowed with special abilities, will likely be a 10-episode production for Sony’s PlayStation.
STORY: FX Optimistic About ‘Powers,’ May Recast, Reshoot Pilot
The Sony-owned gaming console will recast the entire project with writer Charlie Huston stepping in for Charles Eglee. Circle of Confusion will return to executive produce alongside co-creators Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. Michael Dinner will remain on board as an EP and director. Huston and Falling Skies’ Remi Aubuchon will exec produce, with Bendis and Huston set as showrunners. Circle of Confusion’s David Engel, David Alpert and Lawrence Mattis will oversee for the company, which also produces AMC’s comics adaptation The Walking Dead.
Combining the genres of superhero fantasy, crime noir and police procedural, Powers is a one-hour drama set in a world full of people with superhuman abilities and where all of those powers are just another catalyst for mayhem and murder. The series follows Detective Christian Walker (played by Jason Patric in the FX pilot), who is in charge of protecting humans like us and investigating cases involving the God-like men and women, referred to as “powers,” who glide through the sky on lightning bolts and fire and clash above cities in epic battle, oblivious to the mortals below.
For its part, Powers was first put in development at FX in February 2011. SPT has had the rights to the comics for a decade and first optioned the title for a feature film that never came to fruition. The cable network tried multiple times to redevelop the project, which FX topper John Landgraf described as a challenging undertaking. “This is as difficult an adaptation as I’ve ever worked on,” he told reporters in January 2012.
STORY: FX’s ‘Powers’ Still in Limbo
Sony’s PlayStation becomes the latest digital platform to enter the original scripted space. Rival Xbox is developing video game Halo as its first drama entry. Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lyndon hinted that the company was looking to get into the original scripted space last summer in a keynote at E3. The company previously tried to provide original content on the PlayStation Network with an interactive online magazine called Qore (which lasted from June 2008 to April 2012), which was complete with videos, interviews and more, and available to purchase through a subscription.
For its part, Microsoft’s Xbox has yet to formalize its first scripted series order.
The digital streaming space continues to grow increasingly more crowded with Netflix, Hulu and Amazon all producing multiple originals.
Natalie Jarvey contributed to this report.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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