Prison Break producer Zack Estrin has sold Canary to ABC. According to Deadline, the sale is part of a larger deal with the network, and will see Estrin writing the script and overseeing the show as executive producer.
Canary will be a dramatic thriller about the dangerous consequences of whistleblowing. That’s whistleblowing, the act of exposing illegal activities from within an organization; if you’ve been waiting for a gritty drama about the high-stakes world of professional whistling, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Rather, Canary is being billed as “Homeland meets Erin Brockovich,” and follows what happens when a woman ignores significant risks to produce insider information “that will impact the lives of millions.”
Presumably, because this a network thriller, these risks are to her personal safety, and will manifest in the form of voice-modulated calls to her home phone, SUVs with tinted windows tailing her car, and well-dressed men delivering courteous threats. Canary would be wise to eschew whistleblowing’s more accurate and mundane outcomes, such as being vilified by the public, charged with misdemeanors, and shoved into the muffled dustbin of obscurity. After all, nobody wants to see “R.J. Reynolds tobacco scandal meets Linda Tripp.” Maybe if it was a buddy-road trip movie starring Penny Marshall as Tripp and Jon Hamm as Joe Camel…