Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest are extending their partnership to primetime.
The Live With Kelly and Ryan hosts are executive producing an ABC comedy pilot inspired in part by their relationship. The single-camera project, titled Work Wife, is also based on the real-life partnership of creators Casey Johnson and David Windsor (The Real O’Neals, This Is Us).
Windsor and Johnson’s take on Work Wife is the second for ABC and ABC Studios. A previous version of the project, written by Michael Ian Black, was developed in the 2018-19 cycle.
The potential series tells the story of Dani and Scott, a platonic team whose professional success, personal friendship and ability to share deodorant makes their lives work. Set in the world of real estate, it follows the two as they take the leap to start their own team. Now feeling the stress of being the boss, they have to rely on the yin-yang of their dynamic more than ever to keep their professional and personal lives afloat.
The pilot hails from ABC Studios, Ripa’s Milojo Productions and Ryan Seacrest Productions. Windsor and Johnson are writing and will executive produce with director Todd Holland; Ripa; Milojo’s Mark Consuelos (Ripa’s husband) and Albert Bianchini; Seacrest; and Ryan Seacrest Productions’ Nina Wass and Andrea Shay.
Work Wife is the third comedy pilot ABC has ordered this cycle, joining My Village from New Adventures of Old Christine creator Kari Lizer and Prospect from American Housewife and Friends veterans Sherry Bilsing-Graham and Ellen Kreamer. All three come from ABC Studios, with Sony also producing My Village.
On the drama side, ABC has given a straight-to-series order to the David E. Kelley crime show The Big Sky and has pilots for a thirtysomething sequel and Krista Vernoff’s Rebel, starring Katey Sagal and based on the life of Erin Brockovich, among other projects.
