projects

LEVIATHAN

an original series

Leviathan was developed as a television series for the SyFy Network with Executive Producer Sue Naegle and her company Naegle Ink, and writer/showrunner Karl Gajdusek. 

The project originated over a meal after writer Ian Grody and I were introduced following a reading of one of his plays at an NYU alumni event in August of 2013. We decided to make the following short teaser to bring our concept to life. We then pitched the project to producer Sue Naegle at Naegle Ink, who came onboard and brought on showrunner Karl Gajdusek. As a team, we pitched to a number of networks and ended up making a deal with the SyFy network in July of 2014. Ian and I wrote the pilot script, but unfortunately SyFy decided not to proceed with production and put the project into turnaround. 

Check out our original teaser here, and some information on the series below:

In America of 2026, the gap between the haves and have-nots is more extreme than ever. While the poor struggle to scrape by, and the fabric of the nation frays dangerously at the seams, the super-elite spend massive sums of money on frivolous luxuries like commercial space tourism.

On January 1, 2026, the most opulent space liner ever constructed, the Leviathan, is scheduled to depart from New York City. One week later, an alarm sounds at the Atlas Corp. Flight Command Center in Houston. Satellite footage shows the ship exploding in a cloud of fire one hundred thousand miles from Earth, as over six hundred souls perish against the darkness of space.

Three weeks later, word comes that a piece of large wreckage has crashed into the Gulf of Mexico – noteworthy because it has hit the programmed coordinates for the autopilot trajectories of the Leviathan life craft.

*Newscast from Central Park, New York City - January 1, 2026*

FBI detective Erik Niels, 35, rushes with a search-and-rescue team to the spot, where they find a pod bobbing mysteriously in the foggy night, fully intact. An emergency light is blinking inside the vessel. Opening the hatch, they find nine bodies. Six are alive. Three are dead. Three have been bound together, their hands tied behind their backs. These are the only known survivors of the most opulent commercial spaceship ever built - and they are the keys to unraveling a mystery that will change the world as Erik knows it.

- - -