Bad Sugar, the 2012 Channel 4 pilot conceived by Olivia Colman, Julia Davis, Sharon Horgan, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, looks set to become a US show.

Deadline.com reports that TV network Fox has ordered a re-make. The deal includes a "significant penalty" clause, which means if the show doesn't become a series then Fox has to pay a large sum of money to the producers.

Bad Sugar is a spoof telenovela style melodrama that centres on a dysfunctional, wealthy mining dynasty, with an ailing patriarch and some greedy siblings. The pilot, shown on Channel 4 in August 2012, was a success and a series was ordered, however it never materialised due to casting issues.

Colman, Davis, Horgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Reece Shearsmith, David Bradley and Kayvan Novak were amongst those in the star-filled cast list. Scheduling issues with their busy diaries meant it eventually proved impossible to reunite the group to make a series.

Patty Breen, who previously worked with Horgan on the US pilot of Dead Boss and is currently working with her as a consultant producer on her new hit US series Divorce, has been signed up by Fox to create the new script. Horgan's production company Merman will make the pilot alongside original producers Tiger Aspect.

The new pilot will follow the "sexy and scheming heirs of a wealthy mining mogul as they battle each other to become the next head of his fracking empire".