Executive producers of Intelligence reportedly decided upon with the show's premise after reading an unpublished manuscript that enthralled them.

Tripp Vinson and Michael Seitzman informed The Hollywood Reporter on Jan. 7 that they got the idea for the CBS series -- about a U.S. intelligence operative who gets a microchip in his brain -- from a script titled The Dissident.

"There were way too many competing projects at the Hollywood studios to pursue it as a feature," Vinson said. "But I had started to think about getting involved in television: 'Why not take this?' I gave the manuscript to Michael Seitzman- he and I were friends."

Seitzman loved the story and came up with the plan that the series would start where the book ends. Together the duo developed a character they changed "pretty significantly" from the manuscript.

"The powers of [lead character] Gabriel were something Michael and I cooked up," Vinson said. "In the book, the hero has superstrength and superspeed. Those are traits you see a lot of superhero movies and Michael was really trying to find something different to do."

The unpublished manuscript, by John Dixon, is now a book titled Phoenix Island. It will be published Jan. 21 via Simon & Schuster.

The original script had a prison storyline the team also didn't want to include in the television series.

"The book dealt with creating superstrength in prisoners by augmenting them in a certain way," Seitzman said. "And the more I was reading the less interested I was in superstrength and more interested in what I thought was the next step in augmented humanity, which would be connecting you directly to the global information grid."

Starring Lost's Josh Holloway, Intelligence premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.

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CBS, Television