Duo to produce unscripted series for ABC

The masterminds behind The CW's two most successful reality series will collaborate on a new project -- for ABC.

"America's Next Top Model" co-creator/host Tyra Banks and "Beauty and the Geek" executive producer Ashton Kutcher have joined forces for a new unscripted show. ABC has ordered eight episodes of the untitled project, the showbiz trade papers report.

The producers and the network are keeping quiet about the show's premise, and maybe even spreading a little bit of disinformation about it. Depending on whose account you read, the series will involve either "beautiful people living in a house together" (Variety) or "contestants competing in a beauty pageant" (Hollywood Reporter). Those concepts, of course, are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Banks is currently presiding over the 10th cycle of "America's Next Top Model," which premiered last week, and is developing another CW show that would have contestants vie for a job at a fashion magazine.

The fifth installment of "Beauty and the Geek," exec produced by Kutcher and partners Jason Goldberg and Karey Burke, debuts on March 11. Kutcher's company, Katalyst Films, also produced MTV's "Punk'd" and "Game Show in My Head," which is scheduled to debut on CBS later this year.