FX Orders Pilot for Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain

The success of The Walking Dead resulted in most TV networks trying to find their own hit horror series. FX already has a hit with American Horror Story and just committed to another horror series, with the ordering of a pilot based on Guillermo del Toro's The Strain.

The Strain is the first in a trilogy of vampire novels, written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Both del Toro and Hogan will be creatively involved in the pilot and are going to write the pilot episode. Lost's Carlton Cuse is on board as executive producer and showrunner, and is also currently involved on the Psycho prequel series, Bates Motel, for A&E.

According to Deadline, the series will have a somewhat limited run, with a total of three to five seasons. Guillermo del Toro mentioned that he'd like to cover the first book in season 1, the second book in season 2, and split up the third book over additional seasons. It is a good possibility that del Toro will be directing a multiple episodes, although his involvement will depend on his feature film schedule and the show being picked up after the pilot.

Expect more details to pour in early next year, but for now, this project is still in the early development stages. Here is the synopsis for the first book:

A plane lands at JFK and mysteriously 'goes dark', stopping in the middle of the runway for no apparent reason, all lights off, all doors sealed. The pilots cannot be raised. When the hatch above the wing finally clicks open, it soon becomes clear that everyone on board is dead -- although there is no sign of any trauma or struggle. Ephraim Goodweather and his team from the Center for Disease Control must work quickly to establish the cause of this strange occurrence before panic spreads. The first thing they discover is that four of the victims are actually still alive. But that's the only good news. And when all two hundred corpses disappear from various morgues around the city on the same night, things very rapidly get worse. Soon Eph and a small band of helpers will find themselves battling to protect not only their own loved ones, but the whole city, against an ancient threat to humanity.