NBC hands out pilot order to Paul Haggis-Warren Leight medical drama

PanARMENIAN.Net - NBC is getting back in business with former Law & Order: SVU showrunner Warren Leight, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

The network on Friday, January 27 handed out a pilot order to an untitled drama from Leight and Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash).

Formerly known as Salvation, the drama was first put in development in August and scored a pilot-production commitment from NBC. The drama is written and executive produced by Leight.

It is described as a real-time "extreme event" medical series that follows the nurses and doctors of an understaffed Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital that becomes the borough's last viable trauma center after a catastrophic hurricane wreaks havoc on the city. On a holiday weekend with few doctors on call, the medical staff will be pushed to make the most difficult life-and-death choices as they work to save their patients and themselves.

Leight will pen the script via his new overall deal with Sony Pictures Television. Haggis, who was on board to direct, will now just exec produce. Charles McDougall (The Mindy Project, Resurrection, House of Cards) now will step in and helm the pilot and exec produce.

The drama brings Leight back to NBC following his run on SVU as well as on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The exec producer, whose credits include Lights Out and In Treatment, left SVU at the end of season 17 for a multiyear deal with Sony TV.

For Haggis, this marks his latest TV foray, following HBO's Show Me a Hero, and brings him back to NBC after helming 2007's The Black Donnellys. On the feature side, his credits include Million Dollar Baby and In the Valley of Elah.

This marks NBC's fourth drama pilot — and the first from Sony TV — of the season. It joins military drama For God and Country, soap Good Girls and thriller Reverie.

Medical dramas and other procedurals (cops and lawyers) continue to be in high demand this pilot season. This pilot joins ABC's The Good Doctor, also from Sony TV.