CBS has put in development Moreau, a drama series inspired by H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel The Island Of Dr. Moreau. Sleepy Hollow co-creator Phillip Iscove, who left the Fox drama at the end of last season, is writing the script for CBS TV Studios and studio-based Kennedy/Marshall.

In the TV adaptation, the title character of disgraced London physiologist Dr. Moreau — who retreats to an island to work on his experiments creating animal-human hybrids — is a woman. Fiercely intelligent and fearless, Dr. Katherine Moreau expands the boundaries of medicine through bold and revolutionary scientific experimentation and treatments in her privately funded island hospital. Iscove executive produces with Marshall and Robert Zotnowski of the Kennedy/Marshall Co.

Primetime-Panic Your Complete Guide to Pilots and Straight-to-Series orders See All

The Island Of Dr. Moreau is one of the most frequently adapted Wells books, with a slew of movies based on it including the 1932 Bela Lugosi starrer The Island Of Lost Souls, the 1977 feature starring Burt Lancaster and Michael York and the infamous 1996 film toplined by Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Warner Bros has been developing a new big-screen treatment with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way.

Iscove was an up-and-coming writer who has been an assistant at UTA when his idea for a new take on another 19th century literary classic, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, got the attention of Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, who invited him to write together the pilot script for what would become the Fox series Sleepy Hollow. At CBS TV Studios, Iscove joins former Sleepy Hollow showrunner Mark Goffman, who also left the Fox/20th TV series after two seasons and now is under an overall deal at CBS Studios.

This is the second sale for Kennedy/Marshall this season; the company also has EDM-themed drama The Drop set at the CW.