Tradecraft: Chad St. John Developing Spy Series at Two Different Networks

Deadline reports that writer Chad St. John (who toiled on a script for Spy Hunter that's apparently no longer being used) now has new spy shows in development at both Cinemax and Fox. Cinemax, who seem to limit their original programming exclusively to spy shows (no complaints here!), are developing St. John's project Kingpin, which, according to the trade blog, "centers on a crafty and careful mid-level drug trafficker trying to get out of the business. He is blackmailed back into it by a dirty DEA agent — who’s really a dirty CIA agent, because the agency can no longer work with murderous cartels — who plans to make the trafficker a puppet kingpin…a tidbit the trafficker and his partners will wish someone would have told them."

Fox, meanwhile, recently bought Watchlist from the writer, which "is about two ex-clandestine Special Ops teammates who sacrifice their normal lives to come to the rescue of a third former teammate who is framed by a powerful CIA faction for a political assassination. A game of cat and mouse on the streets of Boston ensues as the trio takes on the technology and unlimited budget of the CIA." Both shows are executive produced by St. John, his wife Viruna Arend, and James Lassiter, and hail from Lassiter's production company with Will Smith, Overbrook Entertainment.