Natalie Portman to produce ABC pilot based on "Scruples"

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Let it be known that ABC officially has "Scruples" -- and Natalie Portman is thrown in with the deal.

The network has picked up a one-hour drama based on the 1978 Judith Krantz novel "Scruples." Portman is attached to executive-produce, along with Tony Krantz and Annette Savitch.

The project, which comes via Flame Ventures LLC and Warner Bros. Television, is billed as a "sexy soap set in the late 1970s" that "follows a socialite who, following the death of her husband, seeks to open a fashion forward boutique in the heart of Beverly Hills."

The Krantz novel spawned both a sequel, "Scruples Two," and a 1980 miniseries starring Lindsay Wagner, Barry Bostwick, Kim Cattrall and Connie Stevens.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)