Tradecraft: Fox Buys Sheldon Turner Conspiracy Thriller Pilot Frayed

Deadline reports that Fox has bought a conspiracy thriller pilot written by Up In the Air scribe Sheldon Turner. The show is based on a pair of Dutch miniseries Bellicher and Bellicher: Cell, which were in turn based on a popular trilogy of Dutch thrillers by Charles den Tex. (The books have not yet been translated into English.) According to the trade blog, Frayed "centers on an arrogant and entitled corporate consultant who gets embroiled in a grand conspiracy that forces him to go on the run. As his entire life unravels, he’ll come to realize that the only man who can help him is a perpetually paranoid and possibly delusional former NSA agent." Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports that paranoid Seventies thrillers like The Conversation, The Parallax View and Three Days Of The Condor serve as touchstones for Turner on this project. Good touchstones!