The standard advice for aspiring writers is “write what you know.” Mark Burnett, the man behind “Survivor,” is adopting a similar strategy–produce what you know–for his latest foray into scripted television.
Burnett will serve as an executive producer for “Eden,” which NBC has picked up as a pilot. It’s about a group of students on a summer study cruise who must survive on a desert island after their ship is lost in a storm.
Burnett and writer Douglas Day Stewart, an Oscar nominee for “An Officer and a Gentleman,” at first conceived “Eden” as a feature film, then adapted it for television. NBC envisions it as a limited-run series.
“Eden” will follow the shipwrecked students as they begin to establish their own social order on the island. The show also contains a mystery element, as one of the castaways who shouldn’t have been on the ship in the first place carries a secret.
Burnett also is executive producer of “The Apprentice.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Joe Knowles ([email protected])