Nellie Andreeva

NBC has pulled the trigger on a 13-episode order to Hannibal, a straight-to-series project from Gaumont International Television, written and executive produced by Bryan Fuller and executive produced by Martha DeLaurentiis. The project is described as a contemporary thriller series featuring the classic characters from Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon – FBI agent Will Graham and his mentor Dr. Hannibal Lecter – who are re-introduced at the beginning of their budding relationship. The project was bought by NBC preemptively in November with a script against a 13-episode commitment, meaning that the project wouldn’t go through a pilot stage but straight to series if NBC brass liked the script. The network had a short window after receiving Fuller’s script to pick up the series, which it just did. This marks the second series order for GIT, launched in September with Katie O’Connell as CEO. The company also has a 13-episode pickup at Netflix for Hemlock Grove, an hourlong thriller/horror series executive produced and directed by Eli Roth. In addition to Hannibal, Fuller also has the Munsters reboot in the works at NBC. The pilot, Mockingbird Lane, was recently pushed to June because of difficulties with casting.

Also today, NBC gave a very late pilot order to Notorious, from Universal TV and BermanBraun. It is described as an opulent soap in which a female detective returns undercover to the wealthy family she grew up in – as the maid’s daughter – to solve the murder of the notorious heiress who was once her closest friend. Liz Heldens wrote it and is executive producing with Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein. The project reunites Heldens and BermanBraun & NBC — she created the NBC/BermanBraun medical drama Mercy.

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