Hot writer Adam Karp is prepping two big-swing dramas for The CW and CBS.
First, Karp — who won the 2012 Humanitas Prize's New Voices Award — is readying Unnatural Selection, a drama set to explore Charles Darwin and Captain Robert FitzRoy's journey through the Amazon.
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The CW has handed out a script commitment for the drama that focuses on a 21-year-old Darwin, and his childhood friend Capt. Fitzroy's journey through the Amazon to return the woman they both love to her native home. During the journey, they encounter a land ripe with political conflict, mysterious creatures, mythical cities and dangerous foes beyond their wildest imagination. The drama is based on Darwin and FitzRoy's five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle, which established the former ahead of his Origin of the Species.
Karp, who previously worked as an assistant to David Hudgins on Friday Night Lights and David Eick on Battlestar Galactica, will pen the script for the CBS Television Studios entry and exec produce alongside studio-based Kennedy-Marshall Co.'s Frank Marshall and Robert Zotnowski.
Second, Karp will co-write CBS' Modern Gothic alongside David Reed (Revolution, Supernatural). The drama is described as a modern-day reimagining of classic gothic horror stories as contemporary mysteries in which a doctor — Dracula's Abraham "Bram" Van Helsing — investigates the supernatural horrors that modern science fails to explain. Jon Turteltaub's Junction Entertainment will exec produce the CBS Television Studios drama, with Karp and Reed on board as co-EPs; Dan Tischler will also exec produce. The project stems from Junction's two-year pact with CBSTVS.
Karp's credits include Universal Television's Captives as well as work for Syfy and BBC Worldwide Productions. He's repped by Verve, Epicenter and attorney Bob Getman. Reed is with WME and Getman.
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