‘The Expendables’ Event Series In Works At Fox With Sylvester Stallone Producing
by Nellie Andreeva • tip
March 5, 2015 9:45am
EXCLUSIVE: TV action stars are getting The Expendables treatment as Sylvester Stallone’s hit feature franchise is heading to television. Fox is developing The Expendables, an event series based on the movies, with the franchise’s writer and star Stallone executive producing alongside the films’ producer Avi Lerner and NCIS veteran Shane Brennan who serves as showrunner.
Writing/executive producing the TV adaptation are feature writing duo Greg Coolidge (Ride Along) & Kirk Ward and Brennan. It is described as a fun action drama that unites iconic TV stars as a new team of highly-skilled heroes who are on a mission to stop a dangerous terrorist. The project hails from Lionsgate TV, whose feature sibling distributes The Expendables movies, CBS TV Studios, where Brennan is under an overall deal, and CBSTV-based Shane Brennan Prods. Also executive producing the potential event series, for which Fox has ordered a script, are Kevin King, long-time executive at Stallone’s Rogue Marble production company, and Shane Brennan Prods.’ Grant Anderson.
There is no cast attached or approached yet but the producers have plenty of beloved TV action stars to choose from: Walker Texas Ranger‘s Chuck Norris, who already is part of The Expendables feature franchise, 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland, Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck, Xena‘s Lucy Lawless, Quantum Leap‘s Scott Bakula, Alias‘ Jennifer Garner, A-Team‘s Mr. T and Strike Back‘s Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester, just to name a few.
The Expendables is among the movie titles in the Lionsgate library that the company had been eying to mine for television for some time, with the idea for a potential Expendables series first floated back in 2012.
The first three movies in The Expendables franchisee have grossed almost $800 million in the worldwide boxoffice. A fourth and fifth installment as well as a female offshoot The Expendabelles are in various stages of development.
Coolidge & Ward, repped by Paradigm and managed by Jay Froberg of ROAR, were recently tapped to script Roadrunner, an action comedy that has Scott Eastwood and Trace Adkins attached to star.
NCIS: LA executive producer/showrunner Brennan, repped by Paradigm and attorney Kevin Kelly, joined the mothership NCIS series at the beginning of Season 4 in 2006, taking the reins as showrunner the following season. He created spinoff NCIS: LA and ran both series for two years before focusing his attention solely on NCIS: LA.
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