EXCLUSIVE: In what is believed to be the biggest sale so far this season, ABC has landed Doomsday, a thriller drama from producer Carol Mendelsohn (CSI), writers Mark Bianculli & VJ Boyd (Justified) and Sony TV. I hear ABC got the project in a three-network bidding by giving it a pilot production commitment that has series penalty behind it.

Written by Bianculli and Boyd, Doomsday starts in the aftermath of 9/11, when the U.S. government institutes a secret think tank featuring the most creative minds in science and entertainment that is tasked with dreaming up man-made disaster scenarios and their possible solutions. Because the hypothetical ideas are deemed extremely dangerous, the list is sealed and the program shut down. But when a catastrophe occurs that’s ripped from the pages of the missing doomsday book, the team is brought back years later to prevent the disasters of their own making.

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Mendelsohn and Julie Weitz executive produce for CSM Productions alongside Boyd via Pernomium Pictures and Bianculli via Signal Hill Productions.

Doomsday reunites the principals behind drama The Jury: Bianculli, Boyd, Mendelsohn and Sony TV. That project also landed at ABC last year. It had a significant penalty and went to pilot starring Jeremy Sisto and Archie Panjabi. It is back in contention at the network as it is being redeveloped.

Doomsday, as well as The Jury, stem from Mendelsohn’s overall deal at Sony TV, which yielded the NBC drama series Game of Silence. She, Boyd and Bianculli are repped by WME. Boyd is managed by Plattform, Bianculli by Anonymous Content. Boyd also is with Sean Marks.

Doomsday falls in the big-idea original drama concepts category that the broadcast networks are heavily pursuing this season but have been in short supply so far.