The Seven Network is keen to find a new vehicle for Erik Thomson after the end of Packed to the Rafters.
The actor is set to shoot a pilot for the network playing a character who is far removed from Dave Rafter, the decent, salt-of-the-earth family man who loved sport and 1980s music.
Thomson will play the title character in Hartman as a brilliant but flawed, over-sexed surgeon with an unfortunate bedside manner.
Shooting will start in Melbourne later this month, produced by Southern Star Entertainment. IF understands Paul Moloney, a director-producer whose credits include Winners & Losers, City Homicide, Bed of Roses and Home and Away, will work on the project.
The pilot will also feature a female GP, a local cop and a female vigneron. If it’s picked up the series would probably start shooting in the second half of next year.
Rebecca Gibney, who played Dave’s wife Julie in Packed to the Rafters, is to set to produce and star in The Killing Field for Seven, playing the head of a special police task force sent to a small country town to investigate a shocking crime.
Thomson and Gibney were such a winning combination in Packed to the Rafters it would not be surprising if Seven searches for a new show which would reunite the pair.
The network would only say “we are developing a number of projects.”