Fox Television Studios Unveils New Drama Series

LOS ANGELES, November 4: Production is under way on Fox Television
Studios' new adventure drama Defying
Gravity from creator and executive producer James Parriott, with the BBC in
the U.K., Canada's CTV and Space and Germany's ProSieben on board as partners.

The new drama is a U.S./Canadian co-venture with Vancouver-based
Omni Film Productions. It stars actor Ron Livingston and the pilot will be
directed by David Straiton. Also on board is executive producer Michael Edelstein, whose
credits include Desperate Housewives.
Brian Hamilton and Michael Chechik are executive producers for Omni Film
Productions.

Defying Gravity is billed as a
space thriller set in the near future, with eight astronauts from five countries
undertaking a six-year international space mission.

David
Madden, the executive VP of programming at Fox Television Studios, stated,
"We are honored to be producing this series with enormous talents like
James Parriott, the showrunner behind Grey's
Anatomy and Ugly Betty, and one
of the finest writers in television today; and Michael Edelstein, who was a
driving force behind Desperate Housewives.
It's a tribute to James' script that we have been able to attract an actor like
Ron Livingston, who not only made a permanent imprint in film comedy with Office Space, but who was so memorable
in Sex and the City and so moving in
telefilms like Band of Brothers and
our own 44 minutes. This series
dramatizes man's first venture beyond the orbit of the moon—it's
romantic, daring and deeply exciting, and we expect it to be a skyrocket."

Fox
Television Studios is also currently in production on Mental, which is shooting in Bogotá with Fox International
Channels, and on Persons Unknown,
filming in Mexico City with Televisa.

—By Mansha Daswani