Lucas Black and Cary Elwes are set to star opposite Sam Shepard in Epix's first pilot, "Tough Trade."

Meanwhile, Garrett Dillahunt has landed a co-starring role on Greg Garcia's comedy pilot for Fox, "Keep Hope Alive."

"Trade," from Lionsgate TV, exec producer/showrunner Jenji Kohan and co-exec producer/creator Chris Offutt, is a contemporary one-hour drama about the Tucker family, a Nashville music dynasty whose penchant for drink, debauchery and divorce has left it on the verge of bankruptcy.

Black will play an extremely talented guitarist and singer who could have followed in the Tucker legacy started by his grandfather (Shepard) and father (Elwes) but has no interest in pursuing a career in country music. Instead, he makes his money selling illegal ammunition around Nashville.

Epix brass is eyeing "Tough Trade" as the premium cable channel's first original series and aiming for a 2010 premiere.

Black starred in "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" and next appears in "Get Low." Elwes co-stars in "Disney's A Christmas Carol."

The single-camera "Hope," from 20th TV, centers on Jimmy (Lucas Neff), a 25-year-old man raising an infant with the help of his quirky family after the mother of the baby, with whom he had a one-night stand, ends up on death row.

Dillahunt will play Jimmy's dysfunctional father and boss, who is not thrilled to find himself a grandfather and worries that the baby might carry her mom's homicidal gene.

"Hope" marks Dillahunt's return to Fox, where he co-starred on the drama series "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

Dillahunt, who also co-starred in "No Country for Old Men," is repped by Gersh and Allman/Rea Management.