Law & Order’s Dick Wolf launches new series at CBS

Law & Order and the four Chicago series creator Dick Wolf is at it again, and this time, his new series will be on another network.

According to Deadline, Wolf been given a 13-episode order at CBS for a new procedural drama, tentatively titled F.B.I. It’s slated for released during the 2018-2019 season and will chronicle the inner workings of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. F.B.I will begin filming the pilot during the regular pilot season in the spring before proceeding with the rest of the 12 episodes.

The idea of the this new series was introduce back at the 2016 TCA when Wolf revealed plans for a New York crime drama set around the world of the FBI. In order to give leeway into this new crime drama by introducing an FBI agent character on SVU at the end of the 2016-2017 season, but the network ultimately did not go through with it.

Part of the hold up was in part because of the headlines the FBI was making at the time over the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the alleged Russian hack. Due to the hold, Wolf’s limited series, Law & Order True Crimes was pushed up for fall 2017. (We did speak with one of the producers here at CarterMatt for Wolf’s behind-the-scenes look at the bureau earlier this year.)

The great news for Wolf is that former The Good Wife executive producer Craig Turk has signed on to write the pilot episode and will serve as showrunner. Turk has quite the reputation as he is one of the top drama writers at CBS TV Studios. In addition to Turk and Wolf, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski will also serve as executive producers.

This new drama series will be Wolf’s first drama on another network other than NBC in 15 years. Wolf had the 2003 Dragnet reboot on ABC previously. This move also makes complete sense. When you takeover a network you’d eventually move to takeover another and CBS is the logical choice given their successful crime shows in the past.

Wolf’s other shows include two successful franchises, Law & Order and Chicago. One of the Law& Order series, Law & Order: SVU,  is still on the air, heading into its 19th season on NBC where it is joined by the three Chicago series, Chicago Fire (season 6); Chicago P.D. (season 5) and Chicago Med (season 3) as well as the upcoming limited series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.

This story was written by Samantha D’Amico.