HIGH-CONCEPT CRIME DRAMA FROM MATT MILLER & DAN LIN LANDS AT ABC AS PUT PILOT

In a competitive situation with multiple networks bidding, ABC has nabbed a drama project from former Chuck executive producer Matthew Miller and Lin Pictures with a put pilot commitment. Titled Forever, the drama hails from Warner Bros. TV where Miller and Lin Pictures are under overall deals. It centers on Dr. Henry Morgan, the most over-qualified pathology associate in the world who has experienced it all — wars, love, even smallpox and malaria — but there is one feat that he can’t seem to accomplish: dying. Morgan is a 200-year-old man who spends his days working in the New York City Morgue trying to find a key to unlock the curse of his immortality. His investigative work with hard-nosed NYPD detective Jo Martinez will reveal elements of Morgan’s colorful life. Miller will be writing the script and will executive produce with Lin Pictures’ Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz. Forever draws some parallels to the short-lived 2008 Fox drama series New Amsterdam, which starred Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as a 400-year-old NYPD homicide detective with a female partner, Eva Marquez (Zuleikha Robinson).

This marks Miller’s return to ABC where last season he served as executive producer/showrunner on supernatural drama 666 Park Ave, also from WBTV. He is with WME and McKuin, Frankel, Whitehead. Lin Pictures, repped by WME and Myman Abell Fineman, has comedy pilot Assistants still in contention at Fox, which is eyeing a new pilot.