In one of the first big drama sales this development season, a genre-themed project from Saw IV and V writers Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan and producer Aaron Kaplan sparked a bidding before landing at ABC with a big put pilot commitment. The intention is to lay off the project, tentatively titled Monstropolis, at ABC Studios.

In Monstropolis, monsters are real, living amongst the humans in the city of New Manhattan (aka Monstropolis). But now someone is killing monsters, and it is up to one disgraced detective to stop the killer… or become the next victim. Melton and Dunstan are writing and will executive produce with Kaplan of Kapital Entertainment.

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Contemporary monster mesh-up has been an arena ABC has been very interested in. In 2013, the network gave a pilot order to Gothica, which was set in the present day and weaved together a mythology that incorporated the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray.

Melton and Dunstan, repped by Paradigm, Underground and Bloom Hergott, are currently writing Halloween Returns at Dimension, The Stuff Of Legend at Disney, and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark at CBS Films.

Kaplan has mystery drama Secrets & Lies returning for a second season at ABC. His upcoming series include comedies Life In Pieces at CBS and the Sarah Jessica Parker starrer Divorce at HBO where he also recently set up an Emmett Till miniseries with Jay-Z and Will Smith producing alongside him.