The Originals creator Julie Plec will join producer Lawrence Bender on Roswell reboot. Plec will serve as executive producer and director of the pilot episode of the series, Variety reports.
If the series is ordered, Plec would continue serving as executive producer under her My So-Called Company banner. She would join Kevin Kelly Brown and Lawrence Bender, who will executive producer under Bender Brown Prods; and Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank of Amblin TV.
Plec has had a longstanding relationship with the CW. She created the drama The Originals, which is set to air its fifth and final season this year. She was also the co-developer and showrunner of The Vampire Diaries, which ran for eight seasons. She also directed an episode of Riverdale, another hit series from the CW.
Carina Adly MacKenzie, writer on The Originals series, wrote the pilot episode of the Roswell reboot.
The recently-ordered pilot has found its lead: Jeanine Mason, who played in So You Think You Can Dance and Grey’s Anatomy. Mason will take on the role of Liz Ortecho, a biomedical researcher and the daughter of undocumented immigrants. She returns to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, where she discovers the real identity of her childhood crush and a government-sponsored alien cover-up.
Liz’s work on an experimental regenerative medicine fell through, which sends her back to her hometown and working at the Crashdown café, where she worked during high school. Liz is not the most popular person in town. Her family are immigrants, and her sister is responsible for some deaths in town. She finds a friend in a local police officer.
Fans of the upcoming series were treated to the first official cast selfie earlier in the week, after Tyler Blackburn posted a photo of the cast on Instagram.
This will be Plec’s first time directing a pilot. Kevin Kelly Brown previously worked on the original Roswell series, and Lawrence Bender produced Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting, among others.
Plec is also working towards bringing an Originals spin-off to life. Current plans for the spin-off will be based on Alaric and teenage Hope. It is believed that the series will be set in Alaric’s boarding school. Hope, played by Danielle Rose Russell, will make her first appearance in the final season of The Originals. She will play alongside new love interest Aria Shahghasemi, who is also expected to cross over onto the spin-off.
The reported new cast members will include Swiss actress Jenny Boyd, who played on Viking Quest; Quincy Fouse, who appeared in Logan; and Kaylee Bryant of Santa Clarita Diet and Real O’Neals.
The idea of a spin-off was first muttered in 2015 when Plec said she was interested in expanding the Vampire Diaries beyond The Originals.
Plec said the actors were so good and took up so much space that they earned their own series.
The final season of The Originals will air on April 20 on the CW. No official premiere date for the Roswell reboot has been announced as of yet.
