Fox is developing a TV show about a privately owned police force

By William Hughes | October 23, 2015 | 1:34am

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Taking inspiration from a recent news story about a privately funded, state-supported police force operating within New Orleans’ French Quarter, Fox has announced that it’s developing a new drama about the relationship between society and a crew of billionaire-bought cops. The series—unnamed so far—will center on an “enigmatic tech billionaire” who makes a deal with a bankrupt city to provide and pay for its police force, because nothing eases public anxieties like the thought of a Mark Zuckerberg-type at the helm of a private army of off-duty cops.

The series comes courtesy of David Slack, lately of Person Of Interest, and Underworld’s Len Wiseman, which opens up the always-welcome possibility of seeing vampire/werewolf rent-a-cops ripping low-income trespassers and spray can-armed grafiti artists limb-from-limb with their supernatural strength. Or, it might just be a sober examination of what happens when the reins of public safety are placed in the hands of private business, in which case it’ll represent Wiseman’s first venture into the field of horror.