CBS lines up James Patterson drama

US broadcaster CBS has gone straight-to-series on an adaptation of James Patterson novel Zoo ahead of a summer 2015 launch.

Thirteen-parter Zoo will be based on the novel, which is a global thriller about a renegade scientist who battles to uncover a mystery surrounding a wave of increasingly sophisticated and violent animal attacks against humans.

CBS Television Studios is producing, with CBS Television Distribution handling domestic sales and CBS Studios International selling worldwide rights.

Jeff Pinkner, Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg wrote the TV script and are executive producers along with James Mangold, Cathy Konrad, Patterson, Bill Robinson, Leopoldo Gout and Steve Bowen.

Patterson is by far the world’s biggest-selling author by units sold – 300 million across 130 novels. Zoo was published in September 2012, has currently sold more than four million copies worldwide and has been translated into six languages.

Last summer, Robert de Niro’s TriBeCa Productions, Sonar Entertainment and James Patterson Entertainment teamed together to create a TV adaptation of the author’s Private thriller series.

CBS has been at the forefront of a change in US networks’ attitudes to commissioning high-end scripted series for the summer. After gaining a ratings smash with Under the Dome, it then ordered Extant, which debuts a week today in the US.

“Zoo further demonstrates our commitment to high-quality, year-round programming and to high-concept series that play to summer audiences in the US as well as on a global scale,” said Nina Tassler, chairman, CBS Entertainment.”