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[01/11/16 - 11:27 PM]
Development Update: Monday, January 11
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:

Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!


BARRY (HBO, New!) - Bill Hader ("Saturday Night Live") is set to star, co-write and direct a new half-hour comedy pilot at the pay channel about "an ex-Marine (Hader) who works as a low-rent hitman in the Midwest. Lonely and dissatisfied in his life he begrudgingly travels to Los Angeles to kill someone and ends up finding an accepting community in a group of eager hopefuls within the L.A. theater scene." Alec Berg is co-writing said effort as well as executive producing alongside Hader. (Deadline.com)


BIG LITTLE LIES (HBO; W: David E. Kelley; D: Jean-Marc Vallee) - Merrin Dungey, Larry Sullivan, David Monahan and Iain Armitage have signed onto the ever-expanding cast on the limited series, based on Liane Moriarty's book of the same name about three mothers - Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) and Jane (Shailene Woodley) - of kindergartners whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder. Dungey will play Adrienne Quinlan, "the lead detective working the murder case"; with Armitage as Jane's son Ziggy; and Sullivan and Monahan as "a married couple and parents of a child at the local elementary school." (Deadline.com)


IN TIME (FOX/20th; W: Julius Sharpe; D: TBA) - The Phil Lord and Chris Miller-produced comedy - which "revolves around three unlikely friends who find an even less likely way to travel through time, irreversibly complicating their personal lives in 2016, as the great moments of the past collide with today's popular culture, with hilarious and quite disastrous results" - has been greenlit to pilot by the network. The single-camera project comes from the 20th Century Fox Television-based Lord Miller Productions with Seth Cohen also executive producing. (Deadline.com)


PEARL (ABC, New!) - Andrew Reich ("Work It") is back in business with the Alphabet for a new single-camera comedy about "a larger-than-life family matriarch who, after she finds out she has cancer, becomes intent on controlling and orchestrating every aspect of her family's life before she dies." The project, which comes from ABC Studios, has a pilot order. (Deadline.com)


SPEECHLESS (A.K.A. UNTITLED SCOTT SILVERI PROJECT) (ABC/20th; W: Scott Silveri; D: Jake Kasdan) - Scott Silveri's single-camera comedy - originally set up at FOX in 2014 - has found a new home at ABC where it has landed a pilot order. Said effort revolves around "a family with a special-needs child described as being good at dealing with the challenges it faces and excellent at creating new ones." Jake Kasdan and Melvin Mar also serve as executive producers for 20th Century Fox Television with the former presumably directing. (Deadline.com)


TRENDING FUNNY (Syndication, New!) - Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios is set to launch its 40th series this fall, this time a one-hour talk show. The company details it as follows: "TRENDING FUNNY is a daily one-hour comedy talk show hosted by a panel of comedians - featuring celebrity guests talking about pop culture and what is trending on social media." No other auspices were given. (ES.TV)


AND IN OTHER NEWS... - ABC has formally greenlit "Marvel's Most Wanted," its proposed "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" spin-off pilot starring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood (Deadline.com); Aaron Douglas will guest on "The Flash" as DC Comics villain The Turtle (EW.com); Niecy Nash has been cast as Captain Holt's sister on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" with Oscar Nunez and Craig Robinson also on tap (TVLine.com);

WWE champion Mike "The Miz" Mizanin will visit "Supernatural" as "a young, upstart professional wrestler with a temper to match his talent" while Jim Beaver and Steven Williams are due back as Bobby and Rufus, respectively (EW.com); Laura Dern is the latest face bound for Showtime's "Twin Peaks" revival (TVLine.com); and Utkarsh Ambudkar is bound for "The Muppets" as "a network executive who threatens the sanctity of Kermit's not-so-tightly-run late-night ship and tries to intervene and change up the show" (EW.com).






  [january 2016]  
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· BARRY (HBO)
· BIG LITTLE LIES (HBO)
· BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (NBC)
· DEVELOPMENT UPDATE (TFC)
· FLASH, THE (CW)
· MAKING HISTORY (FOX)
· MARVEL'S MOST WANTED (ABC)
· MUPPETS, THE (ABC)
· PEARL (ABC)
· SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (NBC)
· SPEECHLESS (ABC)
· SUPERNATURAL (CW)
· TRENDING FUNNY (SYNDICATION)
· TWIN PEAKS (SHOWTIME)
· WORK IT (ABC)





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