Female ‘Dr. Moreau’ TV Series in Development From ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Creator

Intellectual property is the name of the game, boys and girls, and nothing gets you noticed faster than a little character inversion. To wit, the mad scientists at CBS have hit the lab to cook up a female-led Island of Dr. Moreau TV series, based on the classic H.G. Wells novel.

Per Deadline, Sleepy Hollow co-creator Phillip Iscove will pen the newest Moreau iteration (titled as such), following a long history of adaptations that include 1932's Bela Lugosi vehicle The Island Of Lost Souls, the Burt Lancaster and Michael York 1977 version, and the infamous 1996 version starring Val Kilmer, Harry Potter favorite David Thewlis, and an exceptionally Brando-esque Marlon Brando.

As to the new, female Dr. Moreau:

The title character of disgraced London physiologist Dr. Moreau — who retreats to an island to work on his experiments creating animal-human hybrids — is a woman. Fiercely intelligent and fearless, Dr. Katherine Moreau expands the boundaries of medicine through bold and revolutionary scientific experimentation and treatments in her privately funded island hospital.

The CBS TV studios deal will also reunite Iscove with similarly-departed Sleepy Hollow showrunner Mark Goffman. Moreau certainly sounds like it has the TV treatment down, but would you watch? Let’s enjoy Marlon Brando once more for clarity. Hey, is that Optimus Prime?