Two new pilots from Fox TV join four others that will dominate production here throughout March and into early April.

Production staffs for both shows set up offices Monday in the Ryerson Steel plant, which indicates that plans for the proposed Cinespace studio there are still viable.

One of new pilots is “Pleading Guilty,” an hour drama based on the Scott Turow novel of the same name and loaded with heavy hitters, starting with director Jon Avnet, on the production side. It starts shooting March 29 for three weeks.

The book is about an ex-cop who becomes an attorney and winds up having to find a missing law firm partner.

Jon Avnet (“Righteous Kill”) also will serve as executive producer along with co-executive producers Hart Hanson, creator of the Fox show, Bones,” and Jason Tracey, who wrote the script for the pilot and was also “Burn Notice’s” co-EP. Kelly Manners produces and Victor Shue directs.

Kicking off March 31 is the romantic comedy “Friends with Benefits,” centering on five friends looking for love but settling for “friends with benefits” in the meantime. It’s headed for NBC, with the hope it just might be the new “Friends.”

Scriptwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber (“(500) Days of Summer”) are executive producers along with Imagine’s Brian Grazer and David Dobkin (“Wedding Crashers”). Chicago’s Roger Anderson is production supervisor.

Imagine’s Ron Howard has been scouting around Chicago for the past two weeks in preparation for the May start of Vince Vaughn’s feature, now called Untitled Cheating Project.

Although the Imagine producers had officed at Fletcher Cameras’ Studio F (in the space next door recently vacated by SJ&A camera services), for some reason they decided to set up shop in Morton Grove for the feature scheduled for May production.

Fletcher’s Studio F remains the home base, however, for Vaughn’s romantic comedy, Firsts, for his Wild West Productions, which shoots March 10-12.

Also starting March 10 is “Ridealong,” the hour-long cop drama from “The Shield” creator Shawn Ryan, writer/executive producer on the new series.

The two Sony TV features, headquartered out at Chicago Studio City, get underway 10 days apart. Principal photography for ABC’s “Matadors” starts March 13 and for “ATF” on March 23.

“Matadors” stars Michelle Borth (“The Forgotten”)and Zach Gilford (“Friday Night Lights”). The Romeo-and-Juliet-style drama is about two feuding Chicago families: Borth works in the state’s attorney’s office and embarks on a secret affair with Gilford, who works at the law firm headed by his father, David Strathairn.

Michael Dinner wrote the script for “A.T.F.” (the Justice Department’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bureau) and will direct and executive produce. He reunites with fellow “Kidnapped” TV series’ Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly as co-executive producers. CBS will air the series.

Finally, “The Source Code” will return to Chicago in April for four more days of location shooting. Jake Gyllenhaal stars in the sci-fi thriller that films in Montreal.

This story originally ran in reelchicago.com.