This is just another way of saying mid-season. The Selection is potentially being considered for a limited run on The CW. This does not axe out the potential full season, but The CW has few spaces to fill with one already being filled with The Originals.
Source: Deadline
Kiera Cass the author of the young adults novels the CW’s “The Selection” pilot is based on has confirmed the CW is taking a completely different direction with “The Selection 2.0″, targeting a mature audience this time around, the cast is significantly older than their characters in the books… and the characters are very different, harder and darker than their book versions.
CW president Mark Pedowitz really wants a show with the tone of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones on the network, with a rewrite on The Selection and talks to adapt cult favorite Battle Royale under way.
The Selection was put in redevelopment in May after the network failed to order the effort to series. The buzzy pilot starring Friday Night Lights‘ Aimee Teegarden based on the books by Kiera Cass is being eyed for midseason, with producers currently rewriting the script.
“It just wasn’t where we wanted to be tone-wise,” Pedowitz said of the Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain effort described an epic romance set 300 years in the future revolving on poor young woman (Teegarden) who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads.
“Hopefully we see something soon and make a determination if we go forward,” he said, noting there would be some casting changes should it move to pilot again. “I’m a big believer in the show, I really wanted a show that has a Game of Thrones-Hunger Gamestone and we hope it’s The Selection. If it’s not, then we will go to another area.”
One of the CW’s brightest hopes for next season is a show about a young girl in a futuristic, war-torn nation who is chosen by lottery to compete for fame and fortune against a backdrop of hunger and carnage.
Sound familiar? The CW hopes so.
“The Selection” is one of eight pilots the ratings-challenged CW is considering as a fall series; it will make its decisions this spring.
The hope is that “The Selection” might ride the success of “The Hunger Games” the way the network’s biggest hit, “The Vampire Diaries,” has surfed the “Twilight” phenomenon.
And it’s no coincidence that the new series is written and produced by “Vampire Diaries” writers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain.
Can’t get enough of The Hunger Games? The CW thought you might say that. The young-skewing network is hoping that Katniss and Co.’s success at the box office (more than $300 million, and counting, in the U.S. alone) will translate to interest in The Selection, a pilot in contention for fall. Friday Night Lights’ Aimee Teegarden stars as a girl chosen to enter a fierce competition to marry the prince of a war-torn society.
Like The Hunger Games, The CW’s The Selection is based on a series of books, the first of which will be released April 24. The two titles also share a dystopian setting, but the similarities mostly end there. “It’s light dystopian,” says author Kiera Cass’ agent, Elana Roth. “Kiera calls it ‘diet dystopian.’ Kiera’s characters are not killing each other; it’s a love story, a fairy tale.” Roth says she eventually found that the books could be best described as “The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor.” Now that’s how everyone’s describing the CW project as well. Says Roth: “I said to myself, that sounded ridiculous but kind of awesome at the same time.”
The CW executive vice president Thom Sherman says the network hopes to potentially launch The Selection (adapted for TV by Angel alums Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain) off of Hunger Games mania, much like The Vampire Diaries got a boost from the Twilight phenomenon. “From what we’ve heard, this is the next book series that will capture everyone’s imagination,” Sherman says.
Roth marvels at the good timing – as HarperCollins’ book deal to publish “The Selection” trilogy was signed back in 2010, long before anyone knew when The Hunger Games would be released or if “The Selection” might be turned into a TV or film property. Warner Bros. TV optioned the book soon after, but as Roth notes, “options are sprinkles on the cake. No one expects anything to come of them, and very few actually end up in development.”
That’s where the buzz surrounding The Hunger Games helped. “It’s funny, two years ago I didn’t think about it this way,” Roth says. “It’s a happy circumstance.” The Selection, which shot its pilot in Vancouver, still has to make that final hurdle: Landing a slot on The CW’s fall schedule. That lineup is crowded with contenders, including hot pilots Arrow (based on DC Comics’ Green Arrow) and The Carrie Diaries.
