Bill Lawrence Signs New Overall Deal at Warner Bros. TV

Bill Lawrence is staying at longtime home Warner Bros. TV. The writer and producer’s company, Doozer, and the studio have agreed to a sizable new overall deal.

The company has also set a comedy project at NBC starring and co-created by comedian Brent Morin, one of the stars of the late NBC/Doozer series Undateable.

The new WBTV deal runs for five years and is worth an eight-figure sum, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. It extends Lawrence’s relationship with the studio, where the Scrubs and Cougar Town creator set up shop in 2011 after a number of years with ABC Studios.

WBTV has also recently signed rich pacts with producers Ava DuVernay and Greg Berlanti, keeping some of its more prolific producers in-house at a time when a number of other high-level producers have left traditional studio homes for Netflix and other streamers.

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Lawrence and Doozer’s previous contract with WBTV, signed in 2015, was due to expire in the first half of 2019.

The new NBC project, which has a script commitment, comes from Morin and co-creator Matt Hausfater, also an Undateable alumnus. Like that show, it is a multicamera comedy. Morin will play a character named Andy Hewitt who, in a desperate bid to prove himself to his family after losing a dream job, has no choice but to take a retail job at the world’s most fashionable department store.

Hausfater, Lawrence and Doozer’s Jeff Ingold are executive producing, with Morin and Doozer’s Lisa Katzer as co-EPs. 

The comedy is the third show from Doozer to go into development in the current cycle, joining DC Comics adaptation Secret Six at CBS and an untitled show starring Sarah Chalke (Scrubs) at ABC. The banner also produces ABC’s midseason spy dramedy Whiskey Cavalier, starring Scott Foley and Lauren Cohan.

Lawrence and Doozer are repped by ICM and attorney Jared Levine. Morin is repped by CAA, 3 Arts and attorney Patti Felker. Hausfater is repped by UTA, Kaplan Perrone and Hansen Jacobson.

Deadline first reported the overall deal.