It looks like FX has decided to pass on the pilot for the Powers TV series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, FX President and General Manager John Landgraf announced that the channel has decided not to pick up the Powers pilot in its current incarnation. Rather than rejecting the show outright, however, FX has asked writer Charles Eglee for "a fairly substantial rewrite," one that would require "pretty extensive reshoots."So where does that leave Powers? In limbo. Landgraf said they are currently trying to decide whether to go ahead with the reshoots or not, and the magazine says a decision will be made sometime within the next few months.

Whatever the specific problems with the pilot, Landgraf doesn't seem to blame the source material, of which he is a fan, but admitted the difficulty in trying to adapt its tone into a 10 p.m. drama: "This is as difficult an adaptation as I've ever worked on...there's never been a feature film or TV series that's taken the super hero genre into that type of tonality, it's never been done and it's just really a struggle."

The comic book series' police "procedural + superheroes" premise seemed ready-made for television, although bringing a comic to the small screen -- even for a far more recognizable property like Wonder Woman -- is no small task. The comic starred police officers Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, police homicide detectives who work the costumed adventurer beat, specializing in cases involving "powers," or superpowered individuals.

The brainchild of writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Avon Oeming, the creator-owned series was launched in 2000 by Image Comics, before finding a new home in 2004 at Marvel Comics' Icon imprint, given Bendis' exclusive deal with the publisher.

Jason Patrick and Lucy Punch were cast as Walker and Pilgrim, respectively, and the pilot, which also featured actor Charles S. Dutton, was being developed by Eglee (who worked on FX's popular police show The Shield and on AMC's The Walking Dead) and director and Michael Dinner (who directed pilots for Sons of Anarchy and Justified). FX green-lit work on the pilot in February of last year.

On his Twitter account, Bendis sounded optimistic. "Still in limbo is not the end of the world," he tweeted. "Never pity a guy with a [TV] deal."

[Via Hollywood Reporter]