THE DEVELOPMENT SEASON
NBC is in the female comic business, and plans to stay that way. The network ordered a pilot of Sarah Silverman’s singlecam comedy about a single woman who just got out of a decade-long live-in relationship. Silverman is writing the script with Dan Sterling and Jon Schroeder.
Booster Gold fans, get excited. The superhero (for those who don’t know — seriously guys, stop living under a rock — he’s a washed-up athlete from the future who steals a bunch of gadgets and becomes a superhero in the present so that he can get an endorsement deal) is coming to Syfy. Andrew Kreisberg is adapting the DC Comics property into a one-hour drama.
The CW is getting into the treasure hunting business. The network is developing GOLDDIGGER, a drama about a female treasure hunter who looks for mysterious artifacts. Lauren Horowitz is writing the script.
The network is also developing a comedy called SWORDFIGHTING, though that’s a bit more of a modern concept than its title would allow. It’s about two young couples who have been best friends and neighbors for years, but come across a roadblock when the two wives fall in love with eachother. Ben McMillan and Josh Greenbaum are writing the script.
Jay Malone and David Neher have been cast as Mark and Roland in TBS’s BFF. They’ll play two recently reunited best friends. Conaco is producing the project, which was written by Ben Wexler, Ross Novie and Jay Rondot.
Gale Anne Hurd‘s Valhalla optioned the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base to adapt into a TV series. The drama would follow two men who work on the secret military base who uncover government secrets. Karl Gadjusek will write the script.
James Gandolfini may come back to HBO in TAXI-22, a comedy about an un-pc cab driver in NYC. Brett Leonard is writing the latest version of the script; Kenneth Lonergan and Dave Flebotte wrote previous versions of the adaptation of the French Canadian series.
FX made a script commitment for BROAD CITY, and adaptation of the web series by Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. Amy Poehler will exec produce.
In other FX news, the network passed on OUTLAW COUNTRY, a crime drama set in Nashville. But, they are retooling POWERS, a police procedural set in a world where superpowers really exist (um, isn’t that just the regular world?).
FX isn’t the only basic cable network buzzing with news. USA welcomed some new characters. Caroline Rhea will star in Douglas McGrath’s comedy project about an actor (Nathan Lane) who returns home to Texas from his Broadway pursuits when his father (Ken Jenkins) turns ill. Rhea will play Lane’s sister. Vanessa Ferlto will star in another USA pilot about agents from various undercover federal agencies who all live in a house together in SoCal. She’ll play Catherine “Charlie” Lopez, a DEA agent.
And not to be left out, Lifetime cast Jeffrey Nordling opposite Melanie Griffith in AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE, about a seemingly perfect housewife who begins hearing a voice that tells her things she’d rather not know.
