Since Travis Beacham (PACIFIC RIM) first wrote A KILLING ON CARNIVAL ROW as a feature in 2005, the project has gone through a host of incarnations. Guillermo Del Toro was initially set to direct the film for New Line, then Neil Jordan (INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE) was onboard before the studio's convergence with WB killed the production. Tarsem Singh was the last director attached, but apparently that fell through as well, because now the script is being adapted into a pilot for an Amazon Studios series.
Beacham, Del Toro, and Rene Echevarria (STAR TREK TNG/DSN, MEDIUM) will be writing the pilot script, which will introduce the supernatural-creature-filled city of the title. It's a noir about a detective on the hunt for a murderer who targets mythical creatures; inevitably, the detective himself is being set up for the crimes, giving him extra incentive to track the culprit down.
Amazon had a big win last night, with two major Golden Globes going to freshman series TRANSPARENT, and they've been stepping up their original content game considerably over the past year or so. They, Legendary, and GDT will no doubt assure that the production values of the series at least match that of the latter's current FX show, THE STRAIN, and will do justice to its Victorian setting and supernatural content.
Del Toro will probably direct the pilot this spring right before he jumps into PACIFIC RIM 2, so we shouldn't expect to see a full series rollout until the end of the year, at the very least.
