Denise Thé, Melissa Scrivner Love & Amanda Segel Ink Sony Pictures TV Deal, Set Projects With Ted Chiang & Gus Van Sant, Ben Winters
EXCLUSIVE: TV writers-producers Denise Thé, Melissa Scrivner Love, and Amanda Segel have formally launched Third Rail Productions with a first-look deal at Sony Pictures Television. Under the two-year pact, the trio will develop and produce scripted series for cable and streaming, focusing on dramas with female leads.
Third Rail’s inaugural development slate includes two projects with high-profile auspices.
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Understand is based on sci-fi author Ted Chiang’s short story from his award-winning collection Stories of Your Life and Others, with Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) attached to direct. The story follows a woman who gains extraordinary intelligence after doctors use an experimental drug to save her life. Her intellect grows, her moral center decays, and she becomes embroiled in a high stakes battle with another super-intelligent individual. Another short story from the same collection, Story of Your Life, was adapted into the feature Arrival.
Additionally, Thé, Scrivner Love, and Segel have teamed with Ben Winters, creator-executive producer of the breakout hit of this past broadcast season, CBS’ Tracker. He is adapting his book Big Time into a series, which he would co-showrun with the Third Rail trio. Big Time is a mind-bending corporate thriller about a middle-aged single mom and FDA bureaucrat drawn into a conspiracy that has stolen a decade from a woman’s life and threatens to alter the nature of time.
“We are excited to sign this dynamic producing trio to a new deal with Sony,” says Lauren Stein, EVP and Head of Creative for Sony Pictures Television. Denise, Melissa, and Amanda are talented, creative collaborators, and we couldn’t be more excited to support them in bringing their development slate to life.”
Thé, Scrivner Love, and Segel founded Third Rail having worked together on CBS’ high-concept procedural Person of Interest. Over the last thirteen years, they have been supporting each other’s careers as writers, creators, and showrunners, which have included work on such series as Westworld (Thé), Clickbait (Scrivner Love) and Shooter (Segel).
Eli Kirschner serves as Third Rail’s Head of Development, and Desa Larkin-Boutté as Manager of Development.
“We are thrilled to join forces with Sony Pictures Television in formally launching Third Rail,” Thé, Scrivner Love, and Segel said. “We couldn’t imagine more collaborative and supportive partners than Katherine Pope, Lauren Stein, Andrew Plotkin, and Ali Roland. It’s a dream come true.”
Thé is repped by CAA and Felker Toczek Suddleson. Segel is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, and Myman Greenspan. Scrivner Love is repped by WME, TFC Management, and Hansen Jacobson Teller.
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