The CW Gives Early Renewal to Drama ‘Sullivan’s Crossing’
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The CW has given an early renewal to one of its fall dramas — and will become a creative partner in the show.
The network has picked up a second season of Sullivan’s Crossing, a family drama starring Morgan Kohan and CW alums Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls) and Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill). The series, based on novels by Virgin River author Robyn Carr, will make its U.S. debut in the fall after airing on Canada’s CTV earlier this year.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
The CW will join Reel World Management, CTV (which is part of Bell Media) and Fremantle as producers of season two. That’s part of the network’s strategy for cultivating original scripted series under new owners Nexstar, as CW Entertainment president Brad Schwartz outlined to reporters in May.
“We have to be entrepreneurial — we can’t just write a $10 million per-episode check for a show with some dragons in it,” Schwartz said during the upfronts. “We’ll find acquisitions that turn into co-productions and maybe some [projects] that need deficit financing from a studio.”
Schwartz also specifically cited Sullivan’s Crossing in noting that acquiring the show wasn’t any cheaper than licensing a new series from a third-party studio as a way of pushing back at the notion that The CW was penny-pinching.
“I don’t differentiate homegrown from acquired,” he said. “We’ve picked shows we think have a chance to do well. … Every single show we acquire, we do because we believe in it, and we do a deal [with the producers] to be involved in creatively going forward.”
Sullivan’s Crossing stars Kohan (Transplant, When Hope Calls) as a neurosurgeon who returns to her small hometown in the wake of a professional scandal. Patterson plays her father and Murray a “mysterious stranger” working with her dad.
Roma Roth serves as showrunner and executive produces with Christopher E. Perry and Fremantle’s Michela Di Mondo and Hilary Martin. Ann Bernier and Mark Gingras produce.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
