The CW is revisiting Tales From the Darkside.
The network has put into development a reboot of the horror TV series created by George A. Romero, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The new take hails from writer Joe Hill (writer of the Locke & Key comics and Stephen King's son) and will be executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci via the Sleepy Hollow duo's overall deal with CBS Television Studios. Mitch Galin (Pet Sematary, The Stand), K/O Paper Products president Heather Kadin and Jerry Golod -- who produced the original Darkside -- are also on board to executive produce the half-hour entry.
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The new take is described as a reinvention of the horror/fantasy/thriller anthology series that ran in the 1980s. Should The CW move forward with the project, it would likely air in summer 2014. The CW take reunites Kurtzman and Orci with Hill, who all previously teamed to bring Locke & Key to the small screen.
The original Tales From the Darkside ran for 90 half-hour episodes, each of which was an individual short story that ended with a twist. The syndicated series hailed from CBS Television Distribution.
The reboot of Tales comes as FX has found both critical and ratings success with American Horror Story, an anthology series from Glee's Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk that reboots itself every season with a new story and largely similar cast.
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The half-hour horror project comes as horror continues to be a hot genre on both broadcast and cable. In addition to AHS and AMC's The Walking Dead -- the latter is TV's No. 1 scripted drama among adults 18-49 -- Cinemax is also prepping an exorcism drama from Robert Kirkman. NBC also has its Hannibal reboot set for a second run in 2014 and this season launched Dracula on Fridays, in addition to countless other projects.
For Kurtzman and Orci, this marks the duo's second project set up at The CW this development season. The pair also has an untitled sibling terrorist drama in the works at the network with Corinne Brinkerhoff attached to pen the script. Kurtzman and Orci (Star Trek, Fringe) are repped by CAA and Michael Gendler.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
