ABC Buys Spiritual Drama From ‘Lost’ Exec Producer Carlton Cuse And Pastor Rob Bell
Carlton Cuse has teamed with author/pastor Rob Bell for Stronger, a drama project with spiritual overtones, which has been sold to ABC via ABC Studios in a hefty script deal. Stronger, which the former Lost co-showrunner and the founder of Michigan’s Mars Hill Bible Church are co-writing and executive producing, revolves around Tom Stronger, a musician and teacher, and his spiritual journey as he becomes a benefactor and guide to others. Music is expected to be a big part of the show, which features autobiographical elements as Bell is a former musician and played with rock/gospel bands in the 1990s.
Cuse and Bell met at the 2011 Time 100 gala — Bell was a 2011 honoree and Cuse had been on the magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2010. The two immediately hit it off and soon concocted the idea for Stronger. While spiritual, Stronger won’t be supernatural. It will touch on the spiritual side of people’s lives much like the final season of Lost did and like Bell has done in his career as a pastor speaking to congregations of more than 10,000. Bell last week announced that he will be leaving the Mars Hill Bible Church in December to move with his family to Los Angeles. The series with Cuse is one of many things Bell plans to pursue, including touring and writing more books. (His most recent tome, Love Wins, is currently on the New York Times bestseller list.) Bell’s expertise is expected to add authenticity to the project, which won’t be straight and square like previous spiritual network offerings, including Touched By An Angel and 7th Heaven, and is also expected to feature a healthy dose of humor. Because the genre is missing from TV at moment, the networks have pursued projects with spiritual elements. Marc Cherry’s Hallelujah was picked up to pilot at ABC last season and is currently being redeveloped. In addition to Stronger, Cuse has another project, Civil War drama Point of Honor, in development at ABC. Co-written by Cuse and Randall Wallace, Point of Honor was sold late last year and remains in consideration. On the feature side, WME-repped Cuse is writing an African action adventure movie for 20th Century Fox with Shawn Levy attached to direct and Hugh Jackman to star.
Hmmm… seems interesting.
While I’m not sure that I agree entirely with Bell’s theology (I cannot determine whether some of his teachings are for the sake of discussion or doctrine), I have thoroughly enjoyed his books and video/sermon/pep talk series, Nooma. I absolutely love LOST so I expect this collaboration to be nothing short of extraordinary. I CANNOT WAIT!
Ohmigosh, don’t you miss LOST?
I miss it so much it aches to remember and watch my dvds. I also feel Season 6 needs a do-over. Wouldn’t that be the coolest? For them to come back, rested with clear heads and try to end it right this time. Would be a dream!
There was nothing wrong with the way LOST ended.
Ahhh now I get you Lost. Figured.
It’s about time!! Rob Bell is an edgy, dynamic creative whose muscular spirituality is totally in sync with today. I think this show will be a HUGE hit, but it needs to be respectful to the audience that followed Touched by an Angel, et al, or it won’t work.
Bell — “edgy, dynamic and creative?” Was that supposed to be ironic, hispter-speak? It’s his right to cash in on his conflation of theology-hipsterdom light, but c’mon now … let’s not lose total perspective.
Say that his theology is “in tune with today” is exactly why his theology is wrong.
AGREED!
because theologians should NEVER look around and pay attention to what God might be trying to tell them NOW
because the word of god resides only in the pages of a dusty antique document. it’s not “living and active…”
Amen!
Sponsored by Nascar and Wingnut Beer.
You, my friend, know nothing about NASCAR nor Rob Bell if you think this to be true.
Anonymous Internet comments like the one above are a nightmare I fear we will never awake from. I realize it is too much to ask for people to understand things before commenting on them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad.
oh, now it all comes together…we can now blame Carlton Cuse for the irritatingly shitty “heterosexual couples holding hands in church” ending of “Lost”….also known in my household as the “WTF? The end of Lost is basically a Thomas Kinkade painting?”
This should be right up Bell’s alley, his books had “spiritual overtones” .
Awesome.
Sounds like a 2011-era “Highway to Heaven” meets “Touched By An Angel” … Anyway, this “saint” approves. Maybe…
Creative prospects are good.
The problem they have is that the aver
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. . . . average education level of today’s tv viewer is the third grade – hence not respond/support/view smartly written scripts beyond the current faire of scripted programming and reality shows.