Pilot News: ABC Orders Disneyland Ride-Based Drama, Gothic Soap From Grey's EP and More

ABC on Tuesday took a trip to the happiest place on Earth, ordering a drama pilot based on Disneyland’s famed ride Big Thunder Mountain. The network also moved forward with three additional projects, including Gothica, a dark soap from Grey’s Anatomy producer Mark Gordon’s company.

From EP Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious) and scribe Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift), Big Thunder centers on a late 19th century New York doctor and his family who relocate to a frontier mining town run by a powerful, but mysterious tycoon. Unfortunately, they quickly realize that not everything in the titular city is as it seems.

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Gothica, meanwhile, is — as the titled suggests — a modern-day Gothic soap that weaves together the mythologies of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray, among others. Matt Lopez (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) will pen the prospective series, with the aforementioned Gordon producing.

An hourlong dramedy from Without a Trace’s Maria Maggenti — titled Murder in Manhattan — has also been ordered. It follows a New York-based mother and daughter who team up as amateur sleuths.

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Lastly ABC ordered Reckless, a drama centering on a resourceful problem solver doing all he can to free his wife, who has been unjustly imprisoned overseas during a political uprising. However, when stymied by the US government in the name of diplomacy, he’s forced to consider less-than-legal options to secure her release. Chris Black (Mad Men) wrote the pilot and Martin Campbell (Last Resort) will exec-produce.


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