Greg Berlanti is typically identified as a “producer” who “puts his name on a lot of TV shows,” but it’s becoming increasingly clear that those mortal labels don’t really do justice to the man or his unimaginable power of television. He currently has over 20 scripted shows on television, and he has at least one on four of the five major networks—all but ABC. Really, at some point we have to acknowledge that Berlanti is less of a TV producer and more of a TV king. Now, even that one holdout has surrendered to Berlanti (specifically his talent for producing hit after hit after hit), with The Hollywood Reporter saying that ABC has given a pilot order to Brides, a Dracula-inspired vampire drama from Berlanti and Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
Brides is going to be a “sexy contemporary reimagining of Dracula” about “a trio of powreful female leads” and with “strong horror elements.” ABC is also billing it as a “vampire soap about empowered, immortal women and the things they do to maintain wealth, prestige, legacy—and their nontraditional family,” with THR pointing out that this exact project (with that exact description) was previously in development over at NBC in 2015.
If this show gets picked up, it’ll mean Berlanti is returning to his former network home as a conquering hero. ABC is where he previously had a development deal (he produced stuff like Brothers & Sisters and Dirty Sexy Money) before getting snatched up by Warner Bros., leading to him developing The CW’s Arrowverse shows, producing Riverdale, and generally setting him on the path to television domination that he’s on now. Also, while a pick-up for Brides would bring Berlanti back to ABC, it still wouldn’t give him a perfect five-network kingdom. Fox would have to renew Prodigal Son, CBS would have to keep God Friended Me alive, and NBC would have to pick up some new Berlanti show since Blindspot is ending. So he’s pretty close to total television domination, but he’s not quite there yet.