'Get Christie Love' Reboot a Go With ABC Pilot Pickup
'Pitch' alum Kylie Bunbury takes over the role of the famed detective originally played by Teresa Graves.
ABC is rebooting one of its history-making dramas.
The network has handed out a pilot order to a reboot of Get Christie Love, the 1970s drama that starred Teresa Graves as the titular detective. Until Kerry Washington in Scandal, Graves was the only African-American female lead in a U.S. network drama. The order comes 44 years — and a day — after Get Christie Love premiered on ABC.
Pitch alum Kylie Bunbury will take on the role of the detective originally played by Graves. The character is described as an African-American female CIA agent who leads a highly trailed elite ops unit. Christie transforms into whomever she needs to be in order to get the job done — especially when it's down to the wire and the stakes are life and death. The high-adrenaline missions of the action-packed, music-driven drama are anchored by an emotional mystery about Christie’s first love — unearthing the truth about this relationship will be the biggest mission impossible of her life.
ABC in September handed out a sizable pilot production commitment for Get Christie Love following a competitive situation. The reboot is produced by Universal Television — which distributed the original — and Vin Diesel's studio-based One Race Television banner. It is a co-production with Lionsgate Television, where Power creator Courtney Kemp and her End of Episode banner is based. Get Christie Love was the first sale for Kemp after she signed an overall deal with Starz/Lionsgate TV in May. Debra Martin Chase (The Princess Diaries) produces via her Martin Chase Productions banner.
That the drama landed in a competitive situation at ABC comes as current ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey played a key role in developing Scandal, which saw Washington become the second African-American actress to land an Emmy nomination. Many of the key auspices behind the project are African-American — ABC's Dungey and Universal Television president Pearlena Igbokwe as well as Martin Chase, Kemp and Diesel's head of television Shana C. Waterman. This is the latest sale this development season for Diesel and Waterman, who are also readying a Miami Vice reboot for NBC.
Reboots continue to remain in high demand this development season as broadcast, cable and streaming outlets look for proven IP in a bid to cut through a cluttered landscape that's expected to top 500 original scripted series in 2018. Also in the works this season is a Bad Boys spinoff at NBC. Key to the remakes is having the original producers — in this case, Universal TV — involved in some capacity as more studios look to monetize their existing film libraries.
Get Christie Love is ABC's second drama pilot order of the season and joins cosmetics entry False Profits as well as a pair of straight-to-series orders in The Rookie (starring Nathan Fillion) and Take Two (with Rachel Bilson and Eddie Cibrian).
Keep up with all the latest pilot orders, castings and eventual series pickups with THR'shandy guide.
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