Two days after 12 Years a Slave took home the Golden Globe for best drama feature, screenwriter John Ridley's racial drama has landed a pilot order at ABC.
American Crime will examine the personal lives of the players involved in a racially charged trial as their worlds are turned upside down.
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Ridley will pen the script and executive produce alongside former ABC Studios head of drama-turned-producer Michael McDonald.
The ABC Studios project marks Ridley's return to TV and comes three years after HBO passed on his boxing drama Da Brick and five years after The Wanda Sykes Show ended its run. His small-screen credits include the Barbershop TV series as well as Third Watch.
For ABC, this marks the network's fourth drama pilot order this season, joining legal thriller How to Get Away With Murder, female-skewing murder drama Sea of Fire and murder mystery Secrets & Lies, the latter of which has already been picked up for 10 episodes.
Ridley next has a rewrite of Ben-Hur in the works for MGM.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
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