TCA: AMC Picks Up ‘Halt & Catch Fire’ & ‘Turn’ To Series

AMC has picked up Halt & Catch Fire and Turn in what network topper Charlie Collier said is the first time AMC has picked up two scripted series in the same cycle. Both projects hail from AMC Studios. Jonathan Lisco has been tapped as showrunner of Halt & Catch Fire. Set in the early 1980s, it dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, Joe (Lee Pace); an engineer, Gordon (Scoot McNairy); and a prodigy, Cameron (Mackenzie Davis), whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. The project was written on spec by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers, who will exec produce with Lisco, Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein. The pilot was directed by Juan José Campanella. Turn, based on Alexander Rose’s book Washington Spies, was written by Craig Silverstein, who exec produces with Barry Josephson. In the summer of 1778, New York farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) and some childhood friends form The Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who turn the tide in America’s fight for independence. Rupert Wyatt directed the pilot. Turn and Halt & Catch Fire join recently picked-up new series Low Winter Sun. With the LaGravenese/Goldwyn project getting a series order at AMC sibling WEtv, all four AMC pilots ordered over the past year have gone to series.