‘Misfits’ Reboot From Fake Empire Gets Freeform Pilot Order, Casts Four Leads

EXCLUSIVE: Freeform has given a pilot order to Misfits, a supernatural drama inspired by the British series. It comes from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire and Diane Ruggiero-Wright (iZombie, Veronica Mars), who wrote the adaptation and serves as showrunner. Cast as four of the five leads in the pilot are Ashleigh LaThrop (Sirens), Tre Hall (Rebel), Allie MacDonald (Orphan Black) and Jake Cannavale (Nurse Jackie), son of actor Bobby Cannavale. Victoria “Vic” Mahoney (Grey’s Anatomy) is making in her pilot directing debit.

Misfits revolves around on a group of young offenders in a community service program who develop supernatural powers after being hit by a mysterious electrical storm.

Lathrop will play Alicia, a spoiled, vapid, middle-class party girl who seems to have three main goals in life: have fun, look hot and get guys. Hall plays Curtis, a talented and cocky football player with a promising career ahead of him who is used to everything going his way. MacDonald plays the tough and trashy Kelly, who is street smart with a hair-trigger temper and a penchant for beating the crap out of people. Cannavale plays Nathan, a con artist and thief with a heavily inflated sense of his own attractiveness, intelligence and potential.

Schwartz, Savage and Ruggiero executive produce alongside Howard Overman, creator of the UK series, and Murray Ferguson of Clerkenwell Films, who produced the original version. Fake Empire executive Lis Rowinski will serve as co-executive producer. ABC Signature is the studio. The project originally was set up at Freeform for development a year ago via the deal Fake Empire had at ABC Studios.

The original series debuted on E4 in 2009 and ran for five seasons.

Schwartz, Savage and Fake Empire also have new series Dynasty on the CW and Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu. They are repped by WME and attorney Joel McKuin. Ruggiero co-created and serves as an executive producer on the CW drama iZombie, which has been renewed for a fourth season. She is with UTA and Principato-Young. Former actress Mahoney started directing episodic television last year and already has helmed eight episodes of such shows as Grey’s Anatomy, Power, American Crime, Survivor’s Remorse and Claws. She is repped by Verve and The Mission Entertainment .

Hall next will be seen recurring on ABC’s Ten Days in the Valley as Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s son. He also recently recurred on BET’s Rebel. He is repped by Main Title Entertainment, Green & Green and attorney Patrick Ragen. MacDonald, who recently starred in the Canadian miniseries Cardinal and recurred on BBC America’s Orphan Black, next can be seen in Under the Silver Lake opposite Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough. She is repped by Don Buchwald & Associates, Sanders Armstrong Caserta Management and Patterson Talent Management in Canada. Cannavale is repped by ICM Partners, Framework and SRDABD.

On the drama side, Misfits follows the Freeform pilots The Bold Type and The Deep (now Siren), both of which went to series. The network also has straight-to-series drama Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger.