Ellis

Josh Schwartz has been kept quite busy at The CW ever since he provided one of the network’s first hits in the teenage drama Gossip Girl. Now after six years Gossip Girl will be bidding farewell later this year when the series comes to a close, but Schwartz still marches on with more than a handful of projects at the network. While he has Hart of Dixie, along with the upcoming The Carrie Diaries and Cult, it seems the network’s most confident employee is ready to get his hands dirty and he’s turning to one of the most publicized writers of this past summer to bring a new drama to life.

TV Line reports that The CW has purchased the script for the pilot Copeland High from writer Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), which will deal with “a private high school (the premier school of the nation) so competitive it turns its students into actual monsters, spreading ramifications throughout the town”.

He will produce along with Schwartz and fellow Gossip Girl EP Stephanie Savage, while the director of Twilight Catherine Hardwick has come on board as an executive consultant. Warner Brothers will be producing for a filming start early next year with a decision to come from The CW sometime next year.

Ellis has gained plenty of publicity over the past few months for emerging as a true contender to tackle the big screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. He’s met the film’s producers though a decision on the matter has not yet been reached.

This marks the second project in the works for Schwartz for the 2013 pilot season, as an American adaptation of the hit sci-fi series Misfits is still in the works after being put into motion earlier this year. There’s no word whether or not the project will surface again after being ordered, but it could emerge after being in development for an extended period of time.