NBC Planning A TV Reboot of Top Cow’s Witchblade

NBC will reboot Top Cow's Witchblade as a new television series, the Hollywood Reporter learned exclusively this week. The project recently gained a script commitment from the network, and will be co-produced by Carol Mendelsohn (CSI) and Vampire Diaries' Caroline Dries. The new Witchblade series will be based on the graphic novel and comic books of Marc Silvestri, who created the original series for Top Cow (an imprint of Image Comics) with Michael Turner, Brian Haberlin, and David Wohl. The original series ran from 1995 to 2001, and has continued on through the years as an anime series, a manga series, and as a graphic novel. TNT previously adapted the comic for television in 2001. That series ran for two seasons, and featured Yancy Butler in the starring role. The Sony Pictures Television version of Witchblade will center on homicide detective Sara Pezzini, who, while hunting for a serial killer in the Mission District of San Francisco (instead of New York City in the source material), discovers that her family bracelet, the Witchblade, gives her supernatural abilities that help her to solve crimes. The amulet in the bracelet has a long history, and Sara is next in line to wield its power. Caroline Dries will be the lead writer and an executive producer for Witchblade, along with Brian Young (Vampire Diaries) and series creator, and Top Cow Comics owner, Marc Silvestri. Other executive producers will be Dave Alpert (The Walking Dead) and the aforementioned Carol Mendelsohn of CSI. This will be the first known new comic-based series for NBC since the cancellation of DC Comics' Constantine in 2015 - after just one season. The new Witchblade series will also come after the series finale of NBC's Grimm, another supernatural series on the network, after a successful six season run. Fans of Witchblade may remember that a feature-length film adaptation was also planned for the series, and announced back in 2008 for a 2009 release. Though it never came to fruition, the movie was to have been filmed in Australia and produced by Platinum Studios, Top Cow Productions, and Arclight Media.