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What appears the be the final piece in NBC’s drama puzzle this pilot season has fallen in — NBC has given the green light to Eric Kripke/JJ Abrams’ drama Revolution. The project, from Warner Bros. TV, had a massive production commitment with a $2 million penalty attached to it. The pilot order comes after a recent rewrite. Revolution, written by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke, is being described as a high-octane action drama following a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist. Abrams, Kripke and Bryan Burk are executive producing. This marks the second pilot order this season for Abrams’ Bad Robot, which is also behind the Mark Schwahn-penned Shelter at the CW.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Niiiiiiice! Can’t wait! Great team up with those two.
NBC bought J.J. Abrams, not the concept. Someone else came in with that, it would have gone no where. All networks are buying from people with shows on air or past hits. Little room for new writers, new ideas. Today Greys, Desperate Housewives, even Sopranos would not have gotten on the air. It’s all star f&#ing and branding and following the herd.
Thanks for this comment. It’s so refreshing to see someone tell the truth and not kiss the ass of these thieving hacks.
Why Phillip K. Dick’s estate doesn’t sue for Person Of Interest I don’t know. It’s a complete rip of Minority Report
I saw the pilot for “Persons of Interest” and wasn’t reminded once of “Minority Report,” one of my all time fave sci fi movies.
There are no original stories anymore; only original variations and I wouldn’t even say Persons of Interest had the same unoriginal story that Minority Report had
oh good I was looking forward to hearing more about this.
anyone know what all the panic at NBC was about over the first draft? why was this particular rewrite such a big deal?
hmmm… don’t know how I feel about this concept.
I’ll be here, constantly refreshing this page, until you do.
S.M. Stirling wrote an entire series of novels about the same concept.
I hope he sues!
There is no basis for a lawsuit here.
French novelist René Barjavel published “Ravage” in 1944. Same plot. Nearly the same with the novel “La Grande Panne” (1936 i guess) by Theo Varlet.
@shawn
It’s called creating derivative works and it is copyright infringement. “Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act… prepare derivative works based upon the work… It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright.”
In practice, if you don’t defend your copyright, trademark, or patent, it’s open season on your work and everybody will steal it with impunity.
If I was SM Stirling – or Penguin (RoC) publishing, and I was not involved in this directly, I would sue Abrams and Bad Robot into bankruptcy. Of course, this probably won’t happen because when you get as rich as Abrams, the rules no longer to seem to apply to you.
The best way to defend against this kind of lazy fraud is to not watch the show. Send the pirate Abrams a message.
Given it’s physically impossible for “all forms of energy” to cease to exist, yeah, you think. I mean everything in the universe is constant energy exchange. Without energy we instantly cease to exist too, as does the universe.
But even assuming for a moment they just described it incorrectly, and they only mean conventional forms of energy for machines, are they saying they have no water for hydro-plants? No wind for wind-turbines? No sun for solar enegery? Without those three elements, again life is over anyway. And with them, they have a basis for energy generation.
I don’t know if this idea works but JJ did a helluva lot better this pilot season that Kurtzman Orci who failed to get any of their pilots picked up.
So, besides County, does NBC have anything in development that could even marginally repeat well? This isn’t Showtime, Greenblatt – you’re going to need more than serialized shows to keep the lights on.
Let me guess. There are also flashbacks to the days when there was power and they were with their loved ones.
SoulHonky, are you interested in a Co-Executive Producer role on Revolution?
I’d love it. I’d get to give notes like, “I’m not sure this makes sense… and that’s exactly what we’re going for!” And if there was ever a problem I couldn’t fix I could just tell them, “Let’s just say it came from a different dimension.”
Mentioning that $2 million penalty doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement. NBC is doing this with a gun to their head.
No, it’s a vote of confidence. That’s how much NBC believes in this interesting concept.
You mean like Mexican-American Roberto Orci?
Well, there’s an interesting topic. Not sure how you get an interesting weekly series out of that, but at least it isn’t yet another show about psychic detectives, lovelorn vampires or supernatural cops.
Too high concept like all the picks up at NBC. There is nothing serialized. Nothing to watch week to week. It’s a very disappointing group of pilots they put their money into.
There is nothing adult, female driven, smart.
Don’t you think this show would be serialized? I can’t envision how it could be done in an episodic format. I’m expecting a tamer version of The Walking Dead, sans zombies. Or maybe TNT’s Falling Skies (sans alien invaders) is a better point of comparison, since that show is tame enough for broadcast despite being on cable.
Probably because you can count practically all of them on your two hands (that have been given an opportunity). No room at the inn I suppose.
Now I’m wondering what’s to be of the Chris Carter project. Would’ve thought that NBC would want to pick it up seeing as though they have the most vacant lineup to fill. Here’s hoping this ain’t the last of NBC’s drama orders.
how can it be high-octane if there’s no more energy of any kind?
::rimshot::
Funny!
“All forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist.”
Beside the obvious (oil, natural gas, coal, wood), that would also mean wind, water, sun, dried cow dung, dried peat, etc. have also ceased to exist?
What’s left?
Hubris!
Yeah that was my first thought – so the Sun has vanished? Wow, this is going to be a short series hardy har.
An EW story includes an earlier logline that is a lot clearer: “In this epic adventure thriller, a family struggles to reunite in a post-apocalyptic American landscape: a world of empty cities, local militias and heroic freedom fighters, where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out … forever.”
This is one of the most interesting concepts I’ve heard all pilot season. Our current society is SO dependent on energy… it will be nice to see a preview of the drama that ensues post burnout.
The rate of each minority group in above the line positions in Hollywood is higher than the rate of each minority group in the general population. Meaning that minorities are not being shut out. They are actually represented at higher rates than in the general population. Thank you. Next ignorant statement?
Not for WOMEN. It sucks.
Well, clearly you’re not paying attention to comedy pilots. But actually there are 4 men applying for tv writing jobs for every 1 woman. So even if staffs were 30% women (and nearly all I’ve ever been a part of were closer to 50%) it would still be heavily tilted in favor of women. If you have complaints of female representation on staffs, then get some more of your friends to apply for the jobs.
Poor Joltin Joe. Your misogyny is well revealed in your comment.
I work in one hour where entire staffs are all white males. Just because women are getting a few breaks in comedy doesn’t mean we have a leg up.
51% of the population is female. Yet only 8% of all writers on staff are female.
And they’re paid less than the men and advance to lower positions.
Women don’t consider becoming writers and become a larger part of the guild because they know life is short and dealing with sexist guys like you who feel they’re entitled is very exhausting.
Sounds like a great post apocalyptic drama.
Didnt FX have a Revolution series in the works about an American revolution that starts in Wisconsin etc? Went no where I guess, but hope this one makes it
Wow, you have a good memory – yes, I do vaguely recall some “modern day civil war” pilot concept that never went to series from a few years back (and it wasn’t the late lamented Jericho either).
Also, at one point SyFy had a series in development that sounded very promising also called Revolution, but it was about a space colony that broke away from Earth and started a war. I’m still sad that one never made it.
I wish he would work with left-handed, hearing impaired, vertically challenged near sighted Guatemalan writers.
Regardless of the concepts, most of which vary between very familiar or too high-concept to be repeated 22 times a year (see: almost all of JJ’s shows), the networks keep ordering shows largely from the same group of writers and producers, somehow expecting to get different results.
And then they wonder why fewer and fewer people watch network TV each year.
P.S.: Has anyone kept track of how many of the what seemed like dozens of “pilot” or “production commitment,” or “big penalty” projects actually did get picked up to pilot?
Thank you. You are right on the money. NBC is not programming a network but throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
There is nothing I want to watch on a week to week. It’s all got special rules, crazy make up, characters I can’t relate to or recognize.
And from writers who get to work year after year with failed shows.
No new voices at NBC.
Anyone know what happened to (or even better, read) the adaptation of Lev Grossman’s THE MAGICIANS at Fox?
I read somewhere that the script was phenomenal ,so it’s strange that they didn’t pick it.
ehh, ducking a little here, as I totally have no idea what $2 million penalty means! Love reading the comments, as it seems like there are a lot of people who work in the industry commenting. So if any of you creative people could explain what that means, I can stop feeling like an idiot, well at least less of one!
Mandy — a $2 million penalty means that if NBC had chosen *not* to pick up REVOLUTON to pilot, they would have owed the studio $2 million. Considering it sounds like this might be a pricey pilot to make — sci-fi, post-apocalyptic (I’m guessing, haven’t read the script) — it’s something they certainly considered when deciding whether or not to move forward.
Usually a network will commit to a “put pilot” or penalties if they’re in competition with another network for the same project and have to step up to show their commitment — and in one like this, with big time producers, it’s not surprising that it came to that.
Plus, this is from Bad Robot, which means the studio is Warner Brothers, and they’re not shy about collecting their penalties from the networks. If it had been Universal, they could have fudged it a bit. In this case, NBC knew they either had to make it or fork over the money. But considering it’s going to cost north of, say, $5 million (and exactly who bears what part of that is anybody’s guess — each project is different) they must have had some faith in the rewrite.
Hope that helped!
It certainly helped me. Thanks.
It was done in a series of books by S.M. Stirling.
I pointed this out in a comment as soon as this story was posted and the comment was apparently rejected.
It’s not an obscure book series either, or old — it’s contemporary and pretty well-known among fantasy readers. And it’s the exact same premise as this pilot. Bigger scope, but the identical premise. Not close, not similar, not inspired by — it’s a series of novels about a world where all forms of technological energy suddenly cease to function.
So, yeah.
That’s exactly what I was thinking as soon as I read the description of the show. I wonder if anyone over on his official site is commenting about it; great books btw.
I live in France, and when I discussed Revolution with three different French people, each one immediately said that it sounded like “Ravages” written by
René Barjavel in 1944. The main difference is that Barjavel documented the 15 years following the blackout. The number “15″ seems significant as the series jumps forward 15 !!!!!
Francois above, also mentioned this. My vote goes to Barjavel !
It’s amazing how one person brings up the minority card and all the naysayers (re: racists) come running. I’m curious to know how many of the commentors are white.
That’s why they waited till last to pick it up… Sorry, chump. I’m not buying it.
He hires next to no women either for TV. His head of TV is very suspicious of them.
His head of TV is suspicious of women? Both Bad Robot TV execs are women.
That’s right Joe. Women trying to please their male boss. Or women that don’t want to hire women cause they don’t like them.
Misogyny isn’t restricted to males.
Wow, blatant rip-off of SM Stirling’s The Change series (first book, Dies The Fire). I sincerely hope Stirling’s publisher gets wind of this and takes legal action.
I was reminded of that book series (that I never read but learned about a few months ago) too but let’s wait till more is released other than a simple, vague logline before calling the lawyers
I like JJ Abrams but not fond of Kripke’s style and his fan repore. Surprised Bad Robots would want to take a chance here. NBC has NO winners so I can see they are willing to see it.
Not sure how close it really is to Stirling’s novels, but the idea wasn’t that original with him either – I know I’ve read old sci-fi stories with a similar premise.