Fox Cancels Ancient Egypt Drama ‘Hieroglyph’

Fox said tonight that it is not moving forward with the midseason action-adventure drama it ordered in October. The network picked up the project straight to series so it could spend pilot money across multiple episodes but subsequent scripts and stories weren’t coming together as hoped. Written by Travis Beacham and originally developed several seasons ago, Hieroglyph centered a notorious thief (Max Brown) who is plucked from prison to serve the Pharoah (Reece Ritchie), navigating palace intrigue, seductive concubines, criminal underbellies and even a few divine sorcerers. Anna Fricke was tapped as showrunner in March, when she signed an overall deal with 20th, which produced the show with Chernin Entertainment. A trailer for the series was played at Fox’s upfront presentation in May to mixed reaction, triggering speculation that the network may shelve the project. Kelsey Chow, Condola Rashad, John Rhys-Davies, Caroline Ford and Antony Bunsee co-starred. Beacham also was an exec producer along with Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope and Miguel Sapochnik, who also directed the pilot. “We wanted to do a show about deceit, sex, intrigue in the court and fantastical goings-on — no better place to set that than ancient Egypt,” then-Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly said when the series was greenlighted. Beacham’s fantastical action-adventure spec narrowly missed a Fox pilot order during the 2011-12 season.