Downtown Abey producer Carnival Films and Big Light Productions are developing a crime series about Sigmund Freud created by X-Files writer Frank Spotnitz.

Set in early 20th Century Vienna, Freud: The Secret Casebook will see psychoanalyst Freud turn his skills to criminal profiling and crime-solving.

According to Downton Abbey-producer Carnival, the series will “blend episodic murder mysteries with the on-going story of Freud’s tangled and provocative personal life”.

Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant for Carnival are exec producing, along with Alan Gasmer and Matt Baer and producing duo Christian Popp and Alexander Keil of Germany’s Producers at Work.

The project is currently casting and directors.

Freud is being written by and writer-director Nicholas Meyer, best known for features Somersby and three of the films in the Star Trek franchise. Most recently he wrote A&E TV movie Houdini.