Amazon Nears Pilot Order For Civil War Drama From Carlton Cuse & Randall Wallace

Amazon Studios is saddling up for Point Of Honor, a Civil War drama from former Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse and Secretariat director Randall Wallace. I hear the streaming service is finalizing a pilot order deal for the project, to be co-produced by ABC Studios’ boutique division ABC Signature and Amazon Studios.

Point of Honor is a historical drama about a fictional family from Lynchburg, VA who find their lives and family fractured by the commencement of the Civil War. It has been a passion project for Cuse and was the first show he developed after his six-season run on the Emmy-winning ABC drama Lost. He and Wallace, who separately were both interested in doing Civil War projects, were put together by their mutual agent, WME’s Ari Greeenburg. Their ideas melded together well, and the two created the show together. The teaming gave the project two different perspectives on the war as Wallace is from the south and went to Duke and Cuse grew up in Boston and went to Harvard.

Like Lost, Point Of Honor was set up at ABC though ABC Studios during the 2010-11 season but did not go to production. Barry Jossen, then head of ABC Studios, was a big champion of the project. He is now an executive producer alongside Cuse as he was instrumental in setting the show up at Amazon. Key on the Amazon side was Amazon Studios head of drama Morgan Wandell, who also knew of the project from his days at ABC Studios. Point Of Honor had been envisioned as a major event series, a genre whose popularity has been on the rise the past couple of years. Cuse and Wallace co-wrote the script, with Wallace set to direct.

It’s been a very busy post-Lost schedule for Cuse who has three series, Bates Motel on A&E and the upcoming The Strain on FX and The Returned on A&E. Additionally, he has a project in the works at USA through Legendary Television. Written by Ryan Condal (Hercules) from a story co-written by Cuse, who will serve as an executive producer and showrunner, Colony follows a family struggling to survive in a modern Los Angeles that has been occupied by a mysterious military force. Wallace, an Oscar nominee for writing Braveheart, most recently wrote and directed this year’s sleeper hit Heaven Is For Real.

Point Of Honor joins a hefty Amazon pilot slate that includes dramas Hand Of God and Hysteria and comedies Really, Red Oaks, Cocked, Cosmopolitan, The Outlaws, Salem Rogers: Model Of The Year 1998 and Down Dog.