EXCLUSIVE: While NBC drama pilot What the Dead Know did not make the cut for a series order, the network has remained high on the general premise and the project’s star, Taylor Schilling.
The crime procedural, from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, will be redeveloped with the same lead and a new writer. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, has extended the option on Schilling, which was about to expire, Deadline has learned.
Additionally, search is underway for a new writer to revamp the drama built around Schilling playing a death Investigator. Depending how the redevelopment goes, the retooled project will be in contention for a straight-to-series order, I hear.
The news is not surprising. As Deadline has reported, Orange is the New Black alumna Schilling received high marks for her performance during NBC’s pilot screenings and, while the network felt that in its current form the What the Dead Know pilot was a no-go, the combination of Schilling and Wolf Entertainment was enough to earn the project a do-over.
What the Dead Know, based on former New York City medical examiner Barbara Butcher’s memoir of the same know, was developed as a potential companion for another Wolf Entertainment crime drama with a female lead at NBC, the venerable Law & Order: SVU. Beth Rinehart wrote the original pilot script.
Wolf Entertainment’s Dick Wolf, Tom Thayer, Peter Jankowski and Anastasia Puglisi executive produce; Kevin Plunkett, Rebecca McGill and Butcher serve as co-executive producers.
NBC picked up four of its eight 2026 pilots to series: dramas The Rockford Files, toplined by David Boreanaz, and Line of Fire, starring Peter Krause, and comedies Sunset P.I. (single-camera), headlined by Jake Johnson, and Newlyweds (multi-camera), starring Téa Leoni and Tim Daly.
