Once the actor’s and writer’s strikes come to a close, ABC Signature Studios will begin filming a new English-Language adaptation of Newen Connect’s French detective series, “Hip (High Intellectual Potential)”, which is known as “HPI (Haut Potentiel Intellectuel)”, in France.

The series follows Morgan, a single mom with three kids and an exceptional mind who helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a cleaner for the police department. When they discover she has a knack for putting things in order because of her high intellectual potential, she is brought on as a consultant to work with a by-the-book seasoned detective, Karadec, and together they form an unusual and unstoppable team.

The new US version of the show will star Kaitlin Olson, Daniel Sunjata, Amirah J , Deniz Akdeniz and Judy Reyes. And the new show will be executive produced by Rob Thomas, who has previously worked on “Veronica Mars” and will be the showrunner. Kaitlin Olson will also be a producer on the show. Alethea Jones, who has previously worked on “Mrs Davis”, will also be an executive producer and the director. It is being written by Drew Goddard, who is an executive producer on the project, along with Sarah Esberg, Pierre Laugier, Anthony Lancret, Thomas and Dan Etheridge.

The first season of the French version was the third most-watched show in French TV history. The show’s distributor, Newen Connect CEO Rodolphe Buet, recently spoke with Deadline about the upcoming US version.

“We are building a global brand. Some shows don’t travel so well but HPI feels like it is in the territory of House or Sherlock. I am convinced that the U.S. version will help with this.”

While the strikes have caused filming on the new show to be delayed, the French team have been involved with the new project for a while.

“The first meeting with ABC was technical and then we very quickly set a call with the creative team. I was amazed by their reaction. They were asking really good questions about next steps and we felt that their engagement was deep and not just artificial.”

He added:

“Americans have been making series for 80 years so we don’t have much to teach them and were just honored that they were interested in our show. They have been extremely positive from day one.

One of the show’s producers, Berengère Legrand, explained in the interview how “proud” she was to discover that ABC is keeping some of the character’s names the same for its version. The lead in both is called Morgan, for example.

‘These are quite typical French names so we are proud that they didn’t change to American.  The States already has a prolific production market with its own ecosystem and a great tradition of storytelling.  Comedies are even more difficult to export and each domestic market has its own tradition of fiction production. But we tried to be universal and HPI is very inspired by American shows in its conception and construction of characters, which may be why this one has fitted in with the U.S. market.”

While we will no doubt have to wait much longer to see the US version of “HPI” released due to the delays, hopefully, it provides us with something a little different.

Are you looking forward to watching “High Intellectual Potential”?  Let us know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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