ITV, Fox to produce The Oaks

British commercial broadcaster ITV has commissioned 5x1hour miniseries The Oaks, the first project to come out of its high profile deal with Fox Television Distribution.

Fox and ITV inked a deal in 2008 to work together to develop formats that would work across its networks.

The Oaks is a dark drama that was produced by Desperate Housewives writer and producer David Schulner for Fox as a pilot in 2008 but wasn’t picked up. It centres around three families that live in the same house in the sixties, the eighties and current day that are all haunted by the spirit of a young girl that died in the house. The US pilot version starred The Hurt Locker star Jeremy Renner.

ITV Studios will produce the show, which will be written by Dr Who’s Stephen Greenhorn, and will be delivered by the end of the year.

The two companies also announced that the British version of Dharma and Greg is finally in development. When the deal was first announced over eighteen months ago, Fox and ITV said that there were plans to develop a UK version of the sitcom. Black Books’ writers Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley are currently working on the revised version.