ABC is getting back in business with David E. Kelley. Twelve years after The Practice-Boston Legal franchise ended its run on the network, Kelley will be making a return with a series order for his new show, The Big Sky.
The Big Sky is based on “The Highway,” the first book in C.J. Box’s Cassie Dewell series of novels. The show will be a procedural thriller, in which private detective Cassie Dewell partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. When they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.
The project is a spec written by Kelley and was originally set up at Epix when A+E Studios acquired it about two years ago. The series did not move forward on Epix but A+E Studios and Kelley remained dedicated to the show. The two entities continued to work together on other projects, including an adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, also created and executive produced by Kelley, which scored a straight-to-series order at CBS. The Big Sky also subsequently was reworked for broadcast, landing at ABC.
Over the past five years, Kelley has been focused on premium cable and streaming with series, including Goliath at Amazon, Mr. Mercedes at Audience, the Emmy-winning Big Little Lies at HBO and the upcoming The Undoing on HBO and Big Shot on Disney+. Kelley has expressed an interest in returning to network TV which is why ABC was so high on getting The Big Sky on the network.
