In The Shark Tank

Get ready to swim with the sharks. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Mark Burnett and ABC will bring the popular U.K. reality show “Dragon’s Den” to an American audience.

Entrepreneurs will pitch their business to five Multimillionaire investors (Sharks). The Entrepreneurs must then convince the Sharks to invest at least what they have asked for or they go home empty handed.

“People are looking to be entrepreneurs to get ahead, yet there’s no way anybody can go into a bank right now and get a loan,” Burnett said. “For these entrepreneurs, these sharks are their last stop.”

The ABC version will be called Shark Tank and will be bigger than previous shows.

“We have made bigger deals and more deals in our pilot than (other versions) make all season,” Burnett said.

“We’ve been excited about the ‘Dragon’s Den’ format for years, but we didn’t go forward at first because we thought it felt too small,” said Vicki Dummer, co-head of alternative at ABC.

The pilot was going to be shot in a huge auditorium, with the sharks seeing behind a desk. Unlike the U.K. and Canadian version where the space is small and intimate and the “Dragons” are seated in simple chairs. Some of the changes distracted from what made Dragon’s Den great: the interpersonal tension between ambitious entrepreneurs struggling to convince five strangers to part with their money.

“The layers we added for a big huge show we’ve ended up peeling back to make the show more like the original,” Dummer said. “The core essence of the show works, and they’ve done a terrific job with it.”

Although no airdate has been announced I would assume that it will premiere next season.

“What country on earth is more entrepreneurial and risk taking than the United States of America? Here we have businesses and jobs being created, and it’s a great feeling.” Says Burnett