J.J. Abrams Fringe Bought by Fox

After a heated bidding, Fox landed the sci-fi spec by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci with a big series commitment. No one would comment on the terms of the deal, but sources said it includes a budget for the two-hour pilot for about $10 million -- the ballpark of Abrams' two-hour pilot for "Lost" -- as well as an episode license fee close to $2 million. The pact also includes a digital component mirroring the template of WBTV's groundbreaking recent agreement with ABC.

"Fringe," which Abrams' Bad Robot is producing with Warner Bros. TV, centers on a young female FBI agent who, forced to confront the spread of powerful and unexplained phenomena, must work with an institutionalized scientist whose life's work may be at the center of the coming storm. "Science is frightening and enlightening at the same time," Orci said. "It can give you everything, and it can destroy you." The industry circles have been buzzing all summer about the top-secret spec script that Abrams was writing with Kurtzman and Orci. It marked the first TV writing duties for Abrams in more than three years, since ABC's "Lost," as well as the return to television of Kurtzman and Orci, one of the hottest feature writing teams at the moment. Like everybody else, Fox's entertainment chairman Peter Liguori and president Kevin Reilly were tracking the project, and even by the very vague logline floating around, felt it was "bull's-eye for Fox."

WBTV sent out the script to the networks Monday night. By Tuesday morning, Liguori and Reilly had read it. "It was exactly what we hoped for," Reilly said. "There is a track record of this type of show working on Fox, and these creators have proven themselves with this type of material." Fox has been trying for years to develop a successor to its hit sci-fi drama "The X-Files."