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ABC has picked up a second new original scripted series for next summer: Missing (aka Safe aka Hall of Mirrors). The project, from feature writer Greg Poirier (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) and Grant Scharbo and Gina Matthews, the producers behind ABC’s 2010 summer series The Gates, was put on fast-track development in early fall with an order for 3-5 backup scripts. Missing, produced by ABC Studios and Matthews and Scharbo’s Little Engine Prods., centers on a worried mom who, after her son disappears in Italy while overseas for a summer internship, takes it upon herself to travel to Europe and track him down. It soon becomes clear that this isn’t any ordinary woman, but a former CIA agent who will stop at nothing to bring her son home alive. Steve Shill, who won an Emmy last in August for his directing work on Dexter, is on board to direct multiple epidodes of the series, including the opener. He will also executive produce with Poirier, Scharbo and Matthews.
In the summer, Missing will join two Canadian scripted series, the recently picked up untitled medical drama set in Afghanistan and Rookie Blue, which will be returning for a second season. Last summer, ABC also ran 3 original scripted series, Rookie Blue, The Gates and Scoundrels.
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Isn’t this just TAKEN: THE SERIES”?
Isn’ this just TAKEN as a TV series?
So, basically, it’s “Taken” – with a mom and son in place of the father and daughter? What ever happened to originality?
nu-uhn. cuz it is a LADY.
Why doesn’t ABC Studios just focus on renewing Legend of the Seeker for a third season instead?
Because it stank up the ratings and no stations want to air it.
that’s what i was gonna say!
The original writers of “Taken” are going to come to Hollywood to get their plot back and will leave a trail of destruction in their wake.
THAT would be a good series.
No we are sending our lawyers to Hollywood and suing the sh..t out of these intellectual property thieves.
Yawn. I haven’t watched a summer show since ABC’s Traveler was canceled a few years back.
Traveler was a GREAT show. That feels like years ago.
So The Gates was bad and not reordered, but the production team gets another fast-tracked pilot to try again next summer? Whyy??
I am one of the two original writers of TAKEN, along with my long time collaborator Luc Besson, and we ARE coming to Hollywood and will come not with CIA agents but intellectual property lawyers who know exactly which suit to file against imagination thieves and other creatively challenged entities.
is this for real? this really Kamen? ummm, dude, if this is REALLY you, GO FOR IT! Please -for all the creatives in this town, sue the pants off ABC and the “creators” of this show.
Awesome. They will no doubt argue that your script wasn’t original enough and they aren’t violating any copyright protection because the idea of a parent searching for a child has been done many times. Polanski and Harrison Ford did it in Frantic. Or was he looking for his wife in that movie? Doesn’t matter. I hope you do file a lawsuit but a better tactic would be to announce that you are developing your own official TV series of “Taken” don’t do a sequel it would be repetitive go to the other networks and sell “Taken” in an auction your series will be a big hit and this summer replacement will be gone after six episodes.
Hate to break this to everyone but TAKEN is a rip-off of the 1985 movie, TARGET, with Gene Hackman, Matt Dillion.
ABC has very limited pilot pick-ups from diversity writers AND buys shows from Canadians. Jez. That is sad.
Ummmm. WOW. This is indeed TAKEN, totally and completely ripped off. ABC – what are you thinking!?
Go Poirier! Love that dude.
No thanks.If the character’s son is on his own in Italy, he is probably over 18.That means she has to be in her 40s.I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see a 40-something woman kicking people’s asses.Nor would I find it plausible.
CIA trained or not, she’d still be in her 40s.
Missing aka Safe aka Hall of Mirrors. Why three different titles? Just call it “Taken: The Series” make it easy for viewers to know what it’s about before they even watch it.
lawsuit?
http://www.deadline.com/tag/pierre-ange-le-pogam/
I doubt it’s exactly a rip-off.
The writer probably independently conceived a serial at the same time or before the movie Taken was released or even produced. Afterward, instead of being discouraged, the writer kept going and pitched it as “Taken: The Series” and the execs lapped it up.
So they’re capitalizing on the film’s popularity and completely acknowledge the similarities to greenlight and then market the series but I doubt the show will have anything to do withn sex slaves and there won’t be any more similarities than a parent seeking her missing child in Europe.
Shame on Poirier…
He’s got more talent than this. Or maybe not?
How about this — a couple of old TV hacks go on a worldwide search for original ideas… they are taken hostage in Bahrain and forced to perform scenes from old Bob Hope movies… ultimately, they win the favor of the kind and become part of his personal security — in the pilot these two end up beating Barry and Michelle Obama in a doubles tennis match during a Greenpeace tennis-party weekend sponsored by Exxon, which is really a trap set up by Al Qaeda… Obama’s left handed serve exposes him as a socialist and the President of Kenya steps forward and hands Sarah Palin Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate… and then they kiss.
Isn’t that the plot to “Gigli”?