ABC has officially greenlighted Get Christie Love, an hourlong drama pilot from Power creator/showrunner Courtney Kemp and producers Vin Diesel, Debra Martin Chase and Shana C. Waterman, which already had cast former Pitch star Kylie Bunbury as the lead. ABC landed the project in the fall in a very competitive situation with a pilot production commitment.
Get Christie Love, a co-production between Lionsgate Television and Universal Television, is inspired by the cult 1974 blaxploitation-themed TV movie and subsequent series.
The new Get Christie Love (no ! in the title), written by Kemp, is an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love (Bunbury), an African American female CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit. She transforms into whomever she needs to be to get the job done, especially when it’s down to the wire and the stakes are life and death. The high-adrenaline missions of the series are anchored by an emotional mystery about Christie’s first love — unearthing the truth about this relationship will be the biggest mission impossible of her life.
Kemp executive produces via her production company End of Episode, along with Diesel and Waterman through One Race Television and Martin Chase through Martin Chase Productions.
This has been a passion project for Kemp, who loved the original because of Christie’s poise, strength and femininity. She started working on a remake before she got Power on Starz where it has become the network’s highes- rated series.
Kemp, who has an overall deal with Starz and sibling Lionsgate TV, and Universal TV-based Diesel, both repped by CAA, brought the idea of rebooting the title to Uni TV, which owns the rights to it. Under his overall deal at Uni TV, Diesel also executive produces a reboot of Miami Vice for NBC.
More symbolism about the pickup of of Get Christie Love! — the reboot of the first hourlong network drama with an African American actress as the lead is being greenlighted by ABC, which is run by the first black woman appointed broadcast network president, Channing Dungey, and comes from Uni TV, the first major U.S. TV studio headed by a black woman president, Pearlena Igbokwe.
