Warner Bros. has cut a massive, multimillion dollar deal with CBS for the rights to a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced adaptation of British thriller “Eleventh Hour,” reports Variety.
In addition to agreeing to film a roughly $4 million pilot, the trade says that CBS has agreed to produce 13 episodes of the “X-Files”-like project and has agreed in advance to a pay-or-play license fee of roughly $1.75 million per episode.
All told, it’s believed CBS could be on the hook for as much as $25 million to $30 million.
The project reunites the original “CSI” team of producer Bruckheimer and director Danny Cannon, adding in hot feature writer Mick Davis (The Invisible). Bruckheimer TV and Granada International Media are producing via Warner Bros. Television, with Jonathan Littman and Granada’s Robert Green joining Bruckheimer, Cannon and Jackson as executive producers.
“Eleventh Hour” aired as a four-part miniseries in the U.K. last year, with Patrick Stewart starring. The actor played Professor Alan Hood, who’s called in by the government to investigate mysterious cases that involve matters of science — from cloning to global warming. The U.S. adaptation is said to have a tone similar to “The X-Files.”
