NBC Orders TV Pilot Based On Bunn And Hurtt’s ‘The Sixth Gun’

What comic will be next to win over mainstream audiences thanks to a television adaptation, a la Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's The Walking Dead? It just might be The Sixth Gun, Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's wonderful supernatural western series, which has just been picked up for a TV pilot produced by one of the men behind ABC's Lost.Former Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse has been developing The Sixth Gun for television since last October, acting as executive producer on the project with screenwriter Ryan Condal, who is handling the script for the pilot. Condal is somewhat familiar with comics released by Sixth Gun publishers Oni Press, having also written a screenplay based on the Portland, Oregon company's Queen & Country series.

Alongside Cuse and Condal, the pilot has Eric Gitter and Andy Bourne as additional executive producers; both are part of Closed on Mondays Entertainment, the production company sibling of Oni. In fact, The Sixth Gun is part of a multi-year deal between Closed on Mondays and Universal Television announced last year (At that time, multiple Oni projects were listed as being in development as TV shows, including Ghost Projekt, Amy Devlin and Bunn and Hurtt's earlier collaboration, The Damned; those shows presumably remain in development at this time).

This isn't the first time that the Sixth Gun has been in contention for television; back in 2011, Oni Press announced that Syfy was developing the series that we once described as "a mix of True Grit and Hellboy." (If you've never actually read the series, you can enjoy the full first issue right here. Be warned; you'll want more immediately.)

The news of The Sixth Gun's pilot pick-up came late yesterday, with NBC adding the project for consideration for the 2013/2014 television season. While the pilot pick-up is great news, it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll all be watching The Sixth Gun every week come this time next year; NBC has ordered seven drama pilots so far this year (and three comedies), far more than it necessarily has time slots for. It remains to be seen whether or not the pilot will eventually make the cut, but here's hoping it does; no-one wants another Locke & Key situation (great pilot ends up abandoned by its network and ends up in limbo), after all.