EXCLUSIVE: Georgeville Television, an independent TV studio co-founded recently by Leon Clarance of Motion Picture Capital, the financing arm of Reliance Entertainment, and producer Marc Rosen, has teamed with feature director Martin Campbell (Casino Royal) to revive the cult 1978 adventure/sci-fi series Blake’s 7. Writer Joe Pokaski (Heroes, CSI) will pen the re-imagining of the original series created by Terry Nation, a prolific UK TV writer who also created the Daleks for the classic BBC series Doctor Who. Campbell is attached to direct the Blake’s 7 reboot, which is being shopped to U.S. networks.

If, like me, you grew up in Europe in the 1980s, there is no way you haven’t heard of Blake’s 7, which was hugely popular in its native Britain and across Europe where it was better known than Star Trek at the time. Widely considered a cult classic despite no-frills, low-tech special effects, Blake’s 7 ran on BBC for four seasons. (See the show’s title sequence below.) Referred to as “The Dirty Dozen in space,” the series revolves around a group of criminals convicted and given a harsh sentence who, en route to pay the ultimate price for their crimes, get a second chance. These criminals without a code will gain a calling — the opportunity to become most unlikely, but most sorely needed heroes of their time. GVTV has secured the rights to the Blake’s 7 franchise from rightsholder Andrew Sewell and his company B7 Media with funding provided by MPC. Campbell, Pokaski, Clerance, MPC’s Deepak Nayar and Sewell will executive produce. A quarter of a century after Blake’s 7‘s launch, it still enjoys a fan following: Several years ago, Sky1 announced a remake but scrapped the plan in 2010. GVTV’s first series, Neil Cross’s Crossbones, received a 10-episode order at NBC for midseason.