TV SALES
Chelsea Handler and Tom Brunelle have sold an untitled comedy project to NBC. The project was created by and will star Ingrid Haas who had the idea picked up by Handler and Brunelle’s company Borderline Amazing Productions. The series follows a young woman who accidentally breaks up her parents’ marriage, forcer her father to move into her and her roommate’s apartment. Handler and Brunelle will executive produce with Brad Wollack. Haas is repped by CAA, as is Borderline Amazing.
Lisa Joy has sold her project ATHENA to Fox. Based on her graphic novel “Headache”, The series will follow a 23-year old who finds out she is the Greek Godess Athena and must battle various entities and monsters trying to take over the earth, while also maintaing her secret identity. Joy will write and executive produce with Peter Chernin and Kathrine Pope for Chernin Entertainment. Joy is repped by UTA.
MGM Television is creating a television series based off their 1980 film FAME. Nigel Lythgoe will executive produce along with Kary McHoul, Charles Segars and Chad Gutstein. The series will serve as a re-imagining of the the film which follows the lives of entertainment-oriented students trying to find success.
NBC has purchased a single-camera comedy from Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith titled GATES. The show is based on the British series of the same name and centers on the fifteen minutes after school end with kids socializing, teachers trying to keep order and parents trying to find their children. Yuspa and Goldsmith will write the pilot script and executive produce with Aaron Kaplan, Laurence Bowen and Philip Clarke. Yuspa and Goldsmith are repped by ICM.
Eddie Murphy and Shawn Ryan are spearheading an effort to bring BEVERLY HILLS COP to the small screen. Sony has taken on the project and Murphy and Ryan will serve as executive producers with the former also considering a role in front of the camera. The film followed Murphy as a hardened New York cop who starts serving the posh streets of Beverly Hills. He is repped by WME.
ABC has ordered a pilot from Joss Whedon for S.H.I.E.L.D., the alliance encompassing The Avengers. Whedon will helm the pilot and write the script with his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. The trio will executive produce with Jeffrey Bell and Jeph Loeb. Marvel TV will handle production of the pilot, which is set to start lensing immediately. Whedon is repped by CAA.
CBS has purchased a comedy from “The Big Bang Theory” actors/writers John Ross Bowie and Kevin Sussman. Under the working title THE SECOND COMING OF ROB, the series follows a recently divorced man who reunites with his college buddies after seven years of strictly defined marriage. Peter Principato, Paul Young and Joel Zadak will executive produce. Bowie is repped by TalentWorks and Sussman is repped by APA.
Miranda Lambert has sold a light drama to NBC which she will executive produce and Chad Hodge will write and executive produce. The project is loosely inspired by Lambert’s upbringing and centers on a married couple who try to balance running a detective agency with raising two children. Aaron Kaplan and Marion Kraft will also serve as exec producers. Lambert and Hodge are both repped by WME.
Howard Gordon and Josh Friedman have sold an untitled high-concept thriller to NBC. The project centers on a world similar to earth that is largely populated by human-looking robots. Gordon, an exec producer for “Homefront”, will supervise the project with Friedman writing. The project comes from 20th Century Fox TV and Teakwood Lane. Gordon is repped by WME and Friedman by UTA.
The feature film PUNCHING THE CLOWN will be developed into a television series for Showtime. The film followed a comedic singer (Henry Phillips) who rised through the business on dumb-luck, only to have it come crashing down. The series will show it living with his equally struggling brother trying to make it in the industry. The films writer and director Gregori Viens will write the project with Phillips and Chuck Martin, who will also serve as an executive producer with Sarah Silverman and David Permu.
ABC has purchased PATRON SAINTS from Di Bonaventura Television. The project will follow a mysterious organization that helps people in desperate and compromising situations. Jeffrey Bell is attached to write the pilot and will exec produce with Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Dan McDermott. Bell and Di Bonaventura are repped by CAA and McDermott is repped by UTA.
Casey Wilson, June Diane Raphael and Will Gluck have secured a pilot with ABC titled THE HOUSEWIVES. Wilson and Raphael wrote and exec produced the project with Raphael also eying one of the roles in the series which would follow three female friends in 1954 America. Sony TV and Olive Bridge Entertainment are producing the project. Wilson, Raphael and Gluck are all repped by UTA.
Robin Williams will be returning to television with a new untitled comedy written by David E. Kelley. The project stars Williams as a top notch executive working with his daughter in the world of advertising. 20th Century Fox TV will produce the series which Kelley is executive producing with Bill D’Elia. Perennial funny man Williams, who won an Oscar for his work in, of all projects, the drama “Good Will Hunting”, is repped by WME and will next be seen in “The Big Wedding”. Kelley is repped by WME as well and is currently working on the pilots for “Monday Mornings” and “The Crazy Ones”.
An untitled project written by Grant Thompson has been purchased by CBS. The series centers on an FBI agent who single-handedly thwarts a terrorist attack while on vacation and is placed in the lead job of a Washington D.C. task force. Neal Moritz and Vivian Cannon will exec produce for Original Film with Thompson co-executive producing. Thompson has been featured in front of the camera with roles in “The O.C.”, “Run Of The House” and “Blades Of Glory”. He is repped by Paradigm.
NBC has purchased two comedies from Ken Kwapis through a first look deal which will have him direct and executive produce both. The first, under the working title FRED AND MARILYN, was written by Scott Prendergast and focuses on a man and his domineering mother. The second project, which is currently untitled, will be written by Claudia Silver and is described as a family comedy based on Jack Gantos’ “Joey Pigza” book series. Kwapis is repped by UTA and in the past has directed episodes for “Malcolm In The Middle”, “The Office” and “Outsourced”.
TV ATTACHMENT
David Zabel has been tapped to write and executive produce BETRAYAL, an ABC drama that will serve as a remake of the Dutch series “Overspel”. The story follows an unhappy married woman who has an affair with a powerful attorney. Rob Golenberg and Alon Aranya will executive produce with Zabel, who served as the showrunner for the hit drama “E.R.” He is repped by WME.
Starz has chosen Neil Marshall to direct the pilot of executive producer Michael Bay’s BLACK SAILS. The series follows famed pirate Captain Flint and his crew, twenty years before the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Treasure Island”. Film director Marshall made his TV debut with the helming of the critically acclaimed “Blackwater” episode of “Game Of Thrones”. He also served as the director for the action-horror films “Dog Soldiers”, “The Descent” and “Doomsday”. He is repped by ICM.
TV RENEWALS
FX has ordered 90 episodes for the Charlie Sheen led comedy ANGER MANAGEMENT. The order comes despite ending on declining ratings. When it premiered earlier this summer the series was the most-watched primetime scripted comedy series ever. The series follows Sheen in a role similar to his in “Two And A Half Men” as a womanizing anger management therapist with anger management issues of his own. Showrunner Bruce Helford executive produced along with Mark Burg, Joe Roth, Dave Caplan and Vince Totino.
TV DEALS
FOX 21 has signed Craig Wright to an overall deal which will allow him to create his own projects and supervise other writers. Wright is the creator behind “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Underemployed” and was part of the writing team for the acclaimed “Six Feet Under”. He is repped by Abrams Artists Agency and WME.
TV CANCELLATIONS
Nickelodeon has cancelled its children’s comedy series HOW TO ROCK. The series only lasted one series and its axing comes shorty after Nick also stated that “Icarly” and “Victorious” will finish their runs this fall. The show, created by Jim O’Doherty and based on the book “How to Rock Braces and Glasses” by Meg Haston, followed a girl who lost her school popularity and tried to reinvent herself.
