High Potential Is A Remake Of A French Series (And There Are Four Other Versions Of The Show)

ABC's "High Potential" is one of five different renditions of the same story — all based on the French police procedural "Haut Potentiel Intellectuel." The original "Haut Potentiel Intellectuel" — or "HPI" — began airing on European networks in 2021, three years before ABC adapted it into "High Potential."

For the most part, "HPI" bears the same premise as its American remake, with a few crucial differences: Kaitlin Olson's Morgan Gillory is known as Morgane Alvaro (Audrey Fleurot), and the character uses her high IQ to assist the Lille police headquarters in northern France instead of the LAPD. Much like Morgan in "High Potential," Morgane's off-the-wall approach to crime-solving often brings her into conflict with the strait-laced detective Adam Karadec (Mehdi Nebbou), portrayed by Daniel Sunjata in the American version.

ABC announced "High Potential" in 2023, shortly after the third season of "HPI" garnered the highest audience ratings for a French series of the last decade. The series has spawned four additional European adaptations, becoming "Excellent Nikol" in Slovakia, "The Cases of the Extraordinary Marty" in the Czech Republic, "IQ 160" in Greece, and "The Reluctant Genius" in Hungary. The original "HPI" aired its final season last September, although the series' production company Mediawan has since hinted at a potential future spinoff.

In a 2024 interview with TVLine, "High Potential" showrunner Todd Harthan shared how his perspective on the "HPI" protagonist influenced the development of ABC's Morgan Gillory. Harthan remarked that the original Morgane Alvaro had "a sort of flippant quality to her, bordering on being slightly too much for my taste," and that he wanted the American Morgan to be "a little more grounded."

"We still have the quirk and personality of the character, because she is big and bold and brash," Harthan added, "but we don't ever want to skew so broad that we're not being mindful of the cases we're tackling and the people that have lost a loved one."

The recent cliffhanger finale of ABC's "High Potential" Season 2 certainly gave Morgan plenty of reasons to stay serious. The episode ended with the potentially fatal shooting of a major character, setting up sky-high stakes for the American remake's upcoming third season. According to Kaitlin Olson, the decision to present Morgan in a slightly more solemn light has become a defining focus of the "High Potential" series. "It's something we set out to explore [in Season 2] — all the ways in which having an IQ of 160 is challenging and not exciting," Olson explained to The Wrap in a post-Season 2 interview.