EXCLUSIVE: Fox has picked up psychological crime drama Murder in a Small Town, starring Rossif Sutherland (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), for the 2024-25 season.
The network has acquired U.S. rights to the series, based on the “Karl Alberg” books by L.R. Wright,, which hails from head writer Ian Weir (Edgemont), director Milan Cheylov (The Cleaning Lady) and Canada’s Sepia Films in association with Fox Entertainment and Future Shack Entertainment, the company of former USA Network President Jeff Wachtel.
This marks Fox’s first green light to a scripted series co-produced with an international studio. “Murder In a Small Town illustrates our ongoing strategy to identify and commission impactful global content in a smart and effective mannerwith proven creative partners,” said Michael Thorn, Fox Entertainment’s President, Scripted Programming.
Looking abroad is a natural extension to Fox’s current development model, put in motion in 2020, which foregoes pilots in favor of more cost-efficient straight-to-series orders. (On the comedy side, Fox occasionally does presentations as part of the development process.) In drama, Fox has been using a script-to-series template, commissioning two scripts and a series format for most projects and writers rooms to produce 3-4 scripts and a bible for the more densely serialized ones.
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