CW Orders 'Carrie Diaries,' 'Beauty and the Beast' Pilots

Also picks up project based on Green Arrow comic books

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/18/2012 6:00:00 PM

The CW has ordered pilots for the Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries, a retooled Beauty and the Beast and the DC Comics adaptation Arrow, the network said Wednesday.

The Carrie Diaries, based on the novel by Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, follows a young Carrie Bradshaw as she comes of age in the 1980s and explores love, sex and friendship as a high schooler in Manhattan. Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are signed on to executive-produce through their Fake Empire shingle in association with Warner Bros. Television, along with Len Goldstein, Bushnell and writer Amy Harris.

Beauty and the Beast is loosely based on the 1980s CBS series of the same name starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, billed as a modern-day love story with a procedural twist. The project is from CBS Television Studios with Paul J. Witt, C. Anthony Thomas, Ron Koslow, Bill Haber, Jennifer Levin and Sherri Cooper executive-producing.

The hour-long Arrow is billed as a modern retelling of the DC Comics character Green Arrow, a hooded archer superhero who uses trick arrows as his weapons to save the city. Arrow is from Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television with Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg attached as executive producers/writers.