NBC exec Bob Greenblatt has inked production deals with several high-profile writers and producers, including new overall pacts with Daniels and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions through Universal Media Studios.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesNBC on Friday picked up comedy pilots from The Office‘s Greg Daniels, Bachelorette writer Leslye Headland and Magic City exec producer Geyer Kosinski.
The network, which last fall bet big on comedies, doubled the number of its pilot offerings in the genre with the orders.
Here’s a look at the new pilot orders:
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The untitled Greg Daniels/Robert Padnick vehicle reteams The Office creator with the NBC comedy’s writer and story editor and is a single-camera effort about the trials and tribulations of dating in your 20s as told through a group of friends. Padnick will pen the project and exec produce alongside Daniels, Tracy Katsky and Howard Klein. Universal Television will exec produce alongside Daniels’ Deedle Dee Productions and 3 Arts Entertainment.
For her part, Headland will write and exec produce Assistance, a single-camera female-fronted comedy based on her play of the same name. Like the play, the comedy from Universal Television revolves around Nora, an idealistic assistant who attempts to find balance in her life while juggling the demands of a larger-than-life boss. The project is described as a fast-moving comedy centered on an idealistic “working girl” assistant who is pulled between her colleague (“work husband”) and her real life fiancé while trying to manage a demanding (translation: crazy) boss.
Universal Television will exec produce alongside Gary Sanchez Productions’ Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Chris Hency and Owen Burke.
Magic City‘s Kosinski, meanwhile, will exec produce Donor Party, which will be penned by Community and Argo actor Alex Schemmer and hails from Lionsgate/Media Talent Group and Universal Television. The single-camera ensemble comedy, in “new normal fashion,” is focused on an irresponsible man forced to grow up when he discovers he has children resulting from his days as a sperm donor. A new family unit develops when a single mom contacts him and he begins to have a relationship with her and the son he never knew he had.
The three comedy pilots join previously picked up About a Boy, Joe, Joe and Jane and The Gates at the network. Dramas After Hours, Bloodline, I Am Victor and The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives round out the network’s current pilot orders.
The Daniels effort was one of a slew of projects he had set up this development season, including a comedy with The Office‘s Craig Robinson; a workplace vehicle with The Office‘s Brian Baumgartner at ABC, among others.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit
