ABC is getting an early jump on pilot season.
The network has handed out a formal pilot order to the single-camera comedy Happy Accident, from two key writers on ABC’s Modern Family.
The project revolves around two Pittsburgh families — a father with three adult daughters and a hotel lounge singer with a medical student son — who are forced together after a decades-old secret is revealed.
Jon Pollack and Abraham Higginbotham will pen the script and executive produce. The potential series is a co-production between ABC Studios and 20th Century Fox Television, where both Pollack and Higginbotham are under overall deals and serve on the writing staff of Modern Family.
A director and casting director will be named shortly as ABC and 20th TV look to get ahead of the annual pilot season crush and begin casting for the comedy immediately. Happy Accident originated as a spec script developed in-house at 20th TV.
The pilot order arrives as 20th TV is poised to move under the Disney umbrella once the $70 billion-plus Fox asset sale is completed. With the massive deal, Modern Family is poised to become a Disney-owned series. The Emmy-winning comedy is up for renewal as its creators have been open about doing potentially another abbreviated season for the Mouse House.
Happy Accident is the second pilot commitment for ABC and 20th TV, joining the network’s NYPD Blue sequel, which is currently casting. The studio also has the pilot Surveillance, which is set to begin production this week in Vancouver.
