Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Reaper creators Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas have signed an overall deal with ABC Studios. Under the two-year pact, the writing-producing duo is joining the studio’s ABC drama pilot Gothica, co-produced by ABC Studio-based Mark Gordon Co. Butters and Fazekas will serve as executive producers/showrunners, working alongside creator/executive producer Matt Lopez. This marks a reunion for Butters and Fazekas with ABC Studios and the Mark Gordon Co, the companies behind the pair’s cult CW dramedy series Reaper. The gig on Gothica, a gothic soap, also marks Butters and Fazekas’ first full-time genre effort since Reaper. (They did some consulting work on Fox’s Dollhouse and Terra Nova).

Set in the present day, Gothica weaves together a mythology that incorporates the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray. Janet Montgomery plays the lead, Grace Van Helsing, with Chris Egan (Dorian Gray), Tom Ellis (Victor Frankenstein) and Raza Jaffrey co-starring. For the past two years, Fazekas and Butters were under an overall deal at CBS TV Studios where they served as full-time consulting producers on the studio’s CBS drama Hawaii Five-0. Before that, the former Law & Order: SVU co-executive producers were under an overall deal at 20th TV where they worked with then-head of drama Patrick Moran, now Head of Creative Development at ABC Studios. They are with ICM Partners.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.