David Cronenberg is bringing his signature Cronenberginess to television with the nascent pilot Knifeman. According to the Hollywood Reporter, he will direct the pilot and serve as an executive producer for the show, which is based on Wendy Moore’s biography of an eighteenth-century self-taught surgeon who expanded his skills — and the boundaries of human knowledge! — through dissecting thousands of bodies, many of which he purchased from body-snatchers. The show, written by Friday Night Lights’ Rolin Jones, comes from Media Right Capital, the same company behind the David Fincher–directed House of Cards; Knifeman doesn’t have a buyer yet, but how hard could it be to find a cable network that needs a gory prestige drama? If anyone can adapt body horror for TV, it’s Cronenberg.