Syfy enters superhero genre with 'Alphas' pickup

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Cable channel Syfy, formerly known at the Sci Fi Channel, has given the green light to the 90-minute action-adventure pilot "Alphas," bringing a happy ending to the project's two-year roller-coaster ride.

"Alphas" follows a team of ordinary citizens who possess hyperdeveloped neurological abilities. It hails from writers Zak Penn ("X-Men: The Last Stand") and Michael Karnow.

After NBC passed on the project, known initially as "Section 8," ABC won a heated bidding war in summer 2007. The network ordered six episodes for a possible midseason launch behind "Lost," but the Hollywood writers strike combined with creative differences to kill the project.

Syfy then entered the picture, putting the project through a redevelopment and name change.

"What we loved about this idea is that it played into a new way of approaching the superhero genre: the idea of ordinary people who have one slightly extraordinary feature about them and are singularly not so special but together can do extraordinary things was very attractive," Syfy executive vp original programing Mark Stern said.

(Editing by dean.goodman at Reuters)