After a lengthy search, Syfy has found the two leads for their drama pilot The Magicians.
Jason Ralph (Aquarius) and Sosie Bacon (The Closer) are set to topline the project, which is an adaptation of the Lev Grossman novel of the same name, TVWise has learned.
Developed for television by Prime Suspect‘s John McNamara and Supernatural‘s Sera Gamble, The Magicians follows 20-somethings who, while studying magic in New York, discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real and poses a grave danger to humanity.
Jason Ralph will play Quentin Coldwater, a brilliant, withdrawn yet strangely compelling young man who feels like an outsider among his accomplished peers; while Sosie Bacon – the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick – has been cast as Alice, an outcast among her fellow students at Brakebills, but nonetheless emerges as the most brilliant magical practitioner in her class.. As TVWise has previously reported, Arjun Gupta (Nurse Jackie), Stella Maeve (Chicago PD) and Hale Appleman (Teeth) also star in The Magicians.
The project landed a pilot order at Syfy back in July as part of the network’s aggressive push back into scripted originals, which has seen them greenlight such series as Z Nation, 12 Monkeys and Hunters. The Magicians is being produced by Syfy’s sister studio Universal Cable Productions, with Michael London serving as the producer. Production on the pilot began this week in New Orleans.
