Ichabod Crane Will Travel Through Time In Fox’s Sleepy Hollow Pilot
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Fox has commissioned a pilot based on the classic Washington Irving short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” cleverly titled Sleepy Hollow. That sounds relatively straightforward, right? You have Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, and a gothic, macabre sensibility. Here is the kicker: Ichabod Crane is going to travel through time. That’s one hell of a wrinkle to the time-tested story.
The script for the drama comes from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the team behind Fringe and Star Trek, and Len Wiseman (Underworld, Total Recall) will direct the pilot. Deadline reports that the project has now found their star. British actor Tom Mison (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) will play iconic scrawny detective.
Sleepy Hollow follows Crane as he teams up with Detective Abbie Archer (Nicole Beharie) to solve “the mysteries of a town ravaged by the battle between good and evil.” Crane begins the story as a Captain in the Revolutionary War. In that capacity he beheads an evil horseman. You know, just a normal day in the life of an old-timey military officer.
Things get complicated, however, when good old Ichabod manages to get himself zipped into the present day (maybe he climbs into a stray DeLorean). You can imagine how an 18th century man might be taken aback by things like cars, cell phones, and airplanes, but he puts his detective skills to use once his old foe, the Headless Horseman, also shows up on the scene.
I can see how this fish-out-of-water take on the Sleepy Hollow myth could be a movie, maybe even a miniseries, but this seems a bit thin for a weekly serial. We’ll see if the pilot gets picked up and go from there.
