ABC Teams With Will & Jada Pinkett Smith (Overbrook) For 'High Octane Pandemic Thriller'

About a 1 1/2 months ago, we announced that Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and James Lassiter (via their Overbrook Entertainment) had teamed up with J. Michael Straczynski and his new media company, Studio JMS, to produce a new television series, which was said to be in development.

The new series was to be titled Epidemic, but details on what exactly its story was weren't yet known, nor what TV network it might be carried on.

Skip ahead to today, to news that ABC has put the series in development in what's being called a "script-to-series" commitment, which means that ABC will order the series (13 episodes) if they like the script they are presented with.

The trades are saying that the project is currently untitled, so I guess the previous title (Epidemic) has been dropped.

So what's this series going to be about, if ordered? Details are still limited; all that's been revealed is that it'll be "a high-octane pandemic thriller that combines closed-ended procedural and serialized elements," says Deadline.

No word on when we might expect movement on this, or who might be attached, both in front and behind the camera. I wouldn't expect Will Smith to star in it; nor Jada. But we'll see.

Straczynski’s past work includes writing/producing TV series like Babylon 5 and Jeremiah, and penning scripts for films that include Thor, Ninja Assassin, Underworld Awakening and Changeling.