Greg Berlanti is typically identified as a “producer” who “puts his name on a lot of TV shows,” but it’s becoming increasingly clear that those mortal labels don’t really do justice to the man or his unimaginable power of television. He currently has over 20 scripted shows on television, and he has at least one on four of the five major networks—all but ABC. Really, at some point we have to acknowledge that Berlanti is less of a TV producer and more of a TV king. Now, even that one holdout has surrendered to Berlanti (specifically his talent for producing hit after hit after hit), with The Hollywood Reporter saying that ABC has given a pilot order to Brides, a Dracula-inspired vampire drama from Berlanti and Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
Brides is going to be a “sexy contemporary reimagining of Dracula” about “a trio of powreful female leads” and with “strong horror elements.” ABC is also billing it as a “vampire soap about empowered, immortal women and the things they do to maintain wealth, prestige, legacy—and their nontraditional family,” with THR pointing out that this exact project (with that exact description) was previously in development over at NBC in 2015.
If this show gets picked up, it’ll mean Berlanti is returning to his former network home as a conquering hero. ABC is where he previously had a development deal (he produced stuff like Brothers & Sisters and Dirty Sexy Money) before getting snatched up by Warner Bros., leading to him developing The CW’s Arrowverse shows, producing Riverdale, and generally setting him on the path to television domination that he’s on now. Also, while a pick-up for Brides would bring Berlanti back to ABC, it still wouldn’t give him a perfect five-network kingdom. Fox would have to renew Prodigal Son, CBS would have to keep God Friended Me alive, and NBC would have to pick up some new Berlanti show since Blindspot is ending. So he’s pretty close to total television domination, but he’s not quite there yet.
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unapologetic genre shows on broadcast TV in era of prestige TV is a lucrative niche (see also: Dick Wolf)
Just think out different television would have been in the 1990s if Dick Wolf’s initial career in porn had worked out.
If we ever get a Wolf/Berlanti production, will broadcast television explode?
Law and Order: Chicago amnesiac tattoo serial killers being hunted by legends of tomorrow- coming to NBC this fall, starring all of those people you go ‘oh yeah, that guy’s been on law and order like 500 times.’
i’d watch it while folding laundry
So Dracula is the new Sherlock Holmes.
Sexy Vampires? Now there’s a twist!
That show description sounded so CW that it just feels wrong for it to end up on ABC.I’m also taking a wild guess that one of the Brides will end up falling in love with Van Helsing’s descendant.
Dracula pilot? Can’t he already transform into a bat and fly around?
Who wants to break it to him that he got beaten to “female-led Dracula show to piss off the chads” by Steven Moffat, of all people?
We already have a sexy reimagining of Dracula:
Berlanti did more than just produce stuff for ABC in the past. A show he co-created, “Eli Stone,” aired 26 episodes in 2008 and ’09.
I’m sorry but the relative lull of vampire garbage cluttering up popular culture was waaaay too short for many of us to have a chance to enjoy it fully. We need a good decade before we have to start dealing with this shit again. Also, if the show really is going to have a quasi-feminist angle then please don’t reference Dracula. It’s such a lame crutch.
Especially since that gap was immediately filled to overflowing by zombies, the extremely not sexy* version of undead things that chew on the living.*Tina Belcher’s opinions notwithstanding.
So the show’s gimmick here is that they’re literal vampires?
“Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa”So it’s garbage then.