…Complete with pics of the writers and verbiage that makes them seem, if not exactly stars, definitely important. You don’t see that everyday, and it’s one of the reasons (the biggest one) why we report on Deadline.Com’s reporting as much as we do. (Oh, so that’s what we do. Good to know.) Deadline’s latest announcement:
ABC Buys Extended Family Comedy, NBC Goes For International Crime Drama – by Nellie Andreeva(Deadline.Com)
ABC has handed a script commitment with penalty to Dumb F*ck, a single-camera comedy from FishBowl Worldwide Media. Written by Hank Nelken (Saving Silverman), the project is about an average guy and his brilliant wife who, due to financial hardship, are forced to live with her family of highly intelligent but emotionally stunted geniuses. Vin Di Bona, Bruce Gersh, Susan Levison and Shaleen Desai executive produce. FishBowl is repped by CAA, Nelken by Gersh.
NBC has bought The Blacklist, a drama from Sony Pictures TV. Written by Jon Bokenkamp, the project is centered around an international, Kaiser Soze-like criminal who mysteriously surrenders himself to the Feds and offers to help hunt down the very men he’s spent his entire life protecting. Davis Entertainment’s John Davis and John Fox executive produce with John Eisendrath. Bokenkamp and Eisendrath are with ICM Partners; Bokenkamp is managed by Brian Lutz.
For the record: Saying either ABC or NBC “buys” a project in a situation like this isn’t exactly accurate. ABC has bought nothing, merely commissioned a script that it is obliged to pay for. NBC has bought a script. The distance between a script deal and an on-air series is a long and winding road. We wish both writers well and look forward to seeing them at the end.