The “real-life Olivia Pope” has sold a New Orleans-set family drama to NBC, Deadline reports. Judy Smith, who co-executive produces Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal and whose crisis-management firm inspired the series, is developing House Of The Rising Sun with NBC. The series is set against the backdrop of New Orleans’ food and music scenes and follows three generations of a corrupt political family that has controlled just about everything in New Orleans for decades. As a sprawling and racially diverse family drama, the show is already being compared to Empire, whose success NBC is no doubt thirsty to re-create.
The pilot was written by Jeremy Miller and Daniel Cohn, who recently sold their rehab comedy pitch The Fix to TBS. Production on The Portland Condition, Miller and Cohn’s Black List feature screenplay, is slated for the end of 2015. In addition to her producing role on Scandal, Smith also executive produces BrainDead, the upcoming CBS zombie-political thriller created by Robert and Michelle King of The Good Wife.