Amazon has added the Steven Soderbergh-produced and David Gordon Green-directed comedy Red Oaks to its third pilot season.
The show is set in 1985 and centers on Craig Roberts’ David Myers, a college student reeling from his father’s heart attack and conflicted about what major to declare in the fall. He gets a summer job as an assistant tennis pro at the Red Oaks Country Club in suburban New Jersey. The coming-of-age comedy also stars Jennifer Grey, Mad About You alums Paul Reiser and Richard Kind and Californication’s Oliver Cooper. The pilot was written by Gregory Jacobs, who also executive produces Soderbergh’s upcoming Cinemax series The Knick, and Joe Gangemi.
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“To be able to collaborate with Steven, David and Greg, three of the most highly regarded creators in Hollywood, is an absolute pleasure,” Amazon Studios director Roy Price said in a statement. “Red Oaks brings together not only top-notch talent, but also a hilarious and wonderfully written script that we think our customers will enjoy seeing come to life later this year.”
Soderbergh added: “Greg Jacobs told me this idea on the set of Behind the Candelabra and I told him it was great and that he should start working on it immediately. Then, while we were on the set of The Knick he gave me the script he wrote with Joe Gangemi and I said, ‘This is ready to go, let’s find a director.’ We very quickly agreed to approach David because the humor was sharp without being mean, and we felt he would understand and appreciate that.”
Soderbergh, Green, Jacobs and Gangemi are executive producers on the pilot.
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The show joins Jay Chandrasekhar’s half-hour dramedy Really and previously announced dramas Hand of God, starring Ron Perlman, and Whit Stillman’s Cosmopolitans in Amazon’s third pilot season.
Other projects in the works include drama pilots Hysteria, starring Mena Suvari as a doctor investigating a mysterious epidemic; Cocked, which stars Sam Trammell as a son who returns home to his family gun manufacturing company; and Point of Honor, a Civil War epic from writer Carlton Cuse.
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Amazon Studios recently picked up five series from its second pilot season. The Seattle-based tech giant, which operates Amazon Studios from Santa Monica, will once again ask viewers to watch its third slate of pilots before making series orders.
The shows will debut later this year on Amazon Instant Video.
Natalie Jarvey also contributed to this report.
