ABC gives pilot commitment to James Patterson & Luc Besson’s The French Detective
According to Deadline, this will be Besson’s TV directorial debut and will direct Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin, who is set to star as Moncreif, in his first U.S. television role. The series will follow “Luc Moncrief, a Parisian detective who moves to New York and joins the NYPD in order to leave his previous life behind and start fresh. The sexy procedural follows Moncrief as he and his blue collar female partner solve New York’s most complex and inscrutable crimes, while Luc simultaneously tries to keep his dark past from catching up to him.”
Written by Bill Collage and Adam Cooper (the men who wrote Assassin’s Creed) and Jonathan Collier (Bones), the series will be executive produced by these men along with Patterson and Besson.
As mentioned previously, the series will be based off of Paterson’s three books, French Kiss, The Christmas Mystery and French Twist, all of which will be used to inspire the show.
While we have many television shows that center on detectives solving crimes, this has a core that is unlike any other. It stars an outsider who comes to New York looking for a fresh start. Now it’s nothing new that he has a secretive past, but the whole concept of the main character being from another culture opens the door for some exciting storytelling and some stories that writers could only do if the character was from a different country.
This intriguing new show could bring potentially good ratings for the network, if it is as successful as it sounds. ABC may be winning with The Good Doctor, but the other major networks are more successful during the week. So this could be ABC’s attempt at adding more shows like The Good Doctor that are different and feature a new kind of lead.
As far as production goes, no news has been released on when filming will start, but we would imagine pretty soon. As soon as CarterMatt learns more, we will pass the information along.
This story was written by Samantha D’Amico. If you want to follow her on Twitter, you can do so at SAM_iamXO. (Photo: ABC)