HISTORY Teams with Sylvester Stallone, Lifetime Preps Salt-N-Pepa Story

Among the slew of new highlights revealed across A+E Networks channels is news of a new drama for HISTORY channel in development with Sylvester Stallone, a K-9 competition series on A&E and a scripted miniseries for Lifetime about hip-hop pioneers Salt-N-Pepa.

Lifetime unveiled the newly greenlit documentary Smart Justice: The Jayme Closs Case. The 90-minute special, set to premiere April 27, features Elizabeth Smart’s exclusive interviews with key players in Jayme’s harrowing case and rescue. Smart also brings together six other well-known victims of abduction for a roundtable discussion to help tell Jayme’s story.

Lifetime has also ordered the documentary special From Darkness to Light from in-house production division A+E Originals and Emmy winner Leah Remini’s No Seriously Productions. Three-time gold medalist Aly Raisman will executive produce alongside Remini. In From Darkness to Light, Raisman provides a platform to other victims of sexual assault and highlights their compelling journeys as survivors.

The network is working with global parenting/family expert, best-selling author and producer Jo Frost to helm 20 all-new episodes of Supernanny. Additionally, Lifetime has ordered Hopelessly In Love to join its unscripted roster for next year. Each two-hour documentary film in the strand explores the ups and downs of romances and untimely deaths that plagued relationships of famous couples like Anna Nicole Smith and Larry Birkhead, Notorious B.I.G. and Faith Evans, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Andre Rison.

On the scripted front, Lifetime has commissioned a miniseries centering on Salt-N-Pepa as they navigated through the male-dominated rap industry. The show reveals the influence they had on the women who followed them. There’s also the feature movie The Clark Sisters: The First Ladies of Gospel, working with executive producers and Grammy winners Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott.

Over at HISTORY, Stallone is developing the drama series The Tenderloin (working title) from A+E Studios in association with Balboa Productions. Stallone will executive produce and direct multiple episodes. Stephen Kay (Sons of Anarchy, The Shield) is set to write the pilot. The series is based on the true story of Charles Becker, a New York cop at the turn of the century and leader of the Strong-Arm Squad, tasked with going to war with the Italian, Jewish and Irish gangs in a violent New York City neighborhood called “The Tenderloin.”

HISTORY is bringing back the live television event Evel Live for a second round, premiering July 7. As part of the network’s third annual Car Week, the live broadcast produced in partnership with Nitro Circus will follow athletes, including champion freestyle motocross athlete Axell Hodges and female freestyle motocross athlete Vicki Golden, as they set out to break world records with three motorcycle stunts. Professional motorsports icon Travis Pastrana will return to co-host the special.

The network adds two new six-hour documentaries, Washington and The Food That Built America, to its premium docudrama programming slate. Executive produced by presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin, Washington (working title) will shine a light on America’s first president. The Food That Built America (working title) will tell the unknown stories of innovation and rivalries behind food industry tycoons Milton Hershey, John and Will Kellogg, Henry Heinz, C.W. Post, the McDonald brothers and more.

HISTORY has greenlit the nonfiction series The UnXplained (working title), hosted and executive produced by Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning actor William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal) and ordered an eight-episode second season of its hit unscripted series In Search Of, hosted and executive produced by Emmy-nominated actor Zachary Quinto (Star Trek franchise, Snowden, Margin Call).

A&E Network, meanwhile, greenlit Top Dog (working title), from Live PD producer Big Fish Entertainment. The show features working K-9s and their handlers competing against their amateur counterparts. A&E’s award-winning Biography is set to air a four-part television special on Garth Brooks, six-time CMA Entertainer of the Year.