ABC has given an off-cycle pilot order to an untitled multi-camera comedy starting stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze, from The Carmichael Show creators Jerrod Carmichael and Ari Katcher and showrunner Danielle Sanchez-Witzel.
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Drew Goddard will direct the pilot, produced by 20th Century Fox TV in association with Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
The project, penned by Bargatze, Carmichael, Katcher and Bargatze’s writing partner Dan Shaki, was originally set up at Fox during the 2017-18 development season with a put pilot commitment. It did not go to pilot and was pursued by ABC, which had been looking to work with Carmichael and was on the market for blue-collar, Middle America family comedies. With Sanchez-Witzel coming on board, the project moved to ABC last summer with a put pilot commitment in 20th TV’s first big sale for the 2018-19 development season.
It narrowly missed the cut for a pilot order but I hear there was a lot of enthusiasm for Bargatze at ABC. With the network ordering the project to pilot after the regular pilot season, 20th TV was able to get Goddard to direct. He joined the studio in March, signing a massive overall deal. Carmichael and Sanchez-Witzel also have overall deals at 20th TV, now part of Disney Television Studios.
Based on the life and comedy of Bargatze, the series follows Nate and his wife who choose to move from California to Nate’s native Tennessee, where his parents still live, to raise their six-year-old daughter. They find the pursuit of a simple life to be much more complicated than they imagined.
Executive producing the pilot are Bargatze, Carmichael, Sanchez-Witzel, who will serve as showrunner, Goddard and Brillstein’s Tim Sarkes and Alex Murray.
Bargatze is repped by: Brillstein Entertainment Partners, UTA, and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis. UTA also repped in the original sale Camichael, Sanchez-Witzel and Katcher.
2019 ABC Pilots & Series Orders
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