Petersen Options 'Clandestine'

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star William Petersen (Gil Grissom) will be executive producing and starring in an adaption of James Ellroy's novel Clandestine for TNT.

According to an article at Variety, the rights to Clandestine were optioned by Petersen's production company, High Horse Films. Petersen will executive produce the television movie with his High Horse partner, Cindy Chvatal.

Clandestine is set in the 1950s and is a noir thriller. Petersen will play the lead, a good cop who falls in with bad cops, only to suffer the consequences of their actions.

Chvatal expressed her enthusiasm for the project, and noted that TNT expressed interest quickly. "Billy was looking to do a gritty cop drama, and we're both fans of Ellroy's books," she commented. "His novels, however, are very hard to get optioned, so you can imagine how thrilled we are to be doing this. TNT was immediately interested, having done plenty of projects using the work of bestselling authors."

CBS Vice President of Drama Development, Nina Tassler commented on Petersen's star power, and mentioned that CSI was developed with him in mind. "Billy, Cindy and (exec producers) Jonathan Littman and Anthony E. Zuiker worked very intimately on the concept for the show," Tassler said. "In today's climate, a show is really required to define itself early on, and I think Billy and Cindy brought a strong point of view to the show from the get-go. Billy's got incredible development instincts. He comes to the process as a partner rather than just a hired actor."

Additionally, High Horse is also working on a superhero action/comedy series that might also star Petersen. Petersen and Chvatal would executive produce the series, along with Buffy: The Vampire Slayer writer Steven DeKnight.

For more on High Horse's development projects, check out the story at Yahoo! News.

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