AMC Won't Order Any Pilots This Go-Round

After narrowing its development field to six scripts, which had been undergoing thorough evaluation for the past two months, AMC ultimately decided not to pick up any of them to pilot at this time. This does not mean that all six projects are dead. I hear that two of them, The Voyage and an untitled racing project, will remain in contention and are expected to be redeveloped. Space epic Voyage, from writer/executive producer John Shiban and executive producer Lynda Obst, is described as a grounded look at human beings' first contact with extraterrestrial life seen through the eyes of an ambitious female scientist and her team at Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Sony TV is producing.

Voyage, the racing project and four other scripts -- The Man With the Golden Ears, The 4th Estate, The Wreck and American Made -- took part in the network's annual pilot script "bake-off" in early March, in which they faced off in a series of elaborate presentations, with the producing team for each project showing a promo reel and each creator pitching in detail the series beyond the pilot, including mapping out the first season. After examining each presentation, I hear AMC brass determined that none of the six scripts were ready to go to pilot at this time. AMC has been very selective in its pilot orders as 100% of them have gone to pilot so far: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon, The Walking Dead (straight to series), The Killing and the upcoming Hell On Wheels.

Source: Deadline