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NBC is looking to a few familiar faces for its next batch of comedy pilots.
The network has handed out pilot pickups to half-hour single-camera projects from Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project), Tina Fey (30 Rock) and Bill Lawrence (Undateable), The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Kaling, who will recur in the untitled comedy, reteams with Mindy executive producer Charlie Grandy. The duo will co-write the Universal Television and 3 Arts comedy as well as exec produce via the actress-writer’s studio-based Kaling Intl. banner. The project landed at NBC in October with a put-pilot commitment. Howard Klein of 3 Arts also exec produces.
The Kaling comedy centers on Vince, a charismatic gym owner with no ambition who lives with his younger brother Michael, a gorgeous idiot. Their simple life of women and working out is put on hold when the teenage son of Vince is dropped off on their doorstep by Priya (Kaling), one of his old high school flings. The comedy comes as Hulu continues to be the home of Kaling’s The Mindy Project, which she also created, stars on and writes.
The Sackett Sisters, meanwhile, reteams Fey with frequent collaborator Robert Carlock as well as with fellow 30 Rock alum Luke Del Tredici. The latter is set to pen the script for the single-camera comedy that revolves around the Sackett family, which is reunited when two estranged sisters perform an act of public heroism and are forced to navigate the aftermath together.
Fey will executive produce the project via her Universal Television-based Little Stranger banner alongside 3 Arts’ David Miner and Del Tredici. The comedy landed at NBC in November with a put-pilot commitment.
Finally, Spaced Out — NBC’s first buy this pilot season from Warner Bros. Television — is from Undateable duo Adam Sztykiel, who will pen the script, and Lawrence. The latter will executive produce alongside his WBTV-based Doozer Productions banner topper Jeff Ingold. The single-camera entry is described as a workplace comedy that centers on a working-class genius and his struggles to fit in with an established team, made all the more difficult when their job is building a rocket to Mars. The project scored a hefty production commitment from NBC in September with multiple networks bidding.
Spaced Out is one of multiple space-themed projects in the works this season. It joins Fox’s Seth MacFarlane live-action straight-to-series dramedy Orville, CBS drama Mission Control (from The Martian‘s Andy Weir) and, to a lesser extent, X-Files spoof Ghosted at Fox.
Thursday’s pickups bring NBC’s comedy pilot haul to six (seven if you count the straight-to-series order for the Will and Grace revival). They join the untitled Kourtney Kang and untitled Seth Meyers/Mike O’Brien projects and What About Bob? reboot What About Barb? at the network this season. Of those, only Will and Grace is a multicam.
Keep track of the latest news and castings at THR.com/PilotSeason and bookmark THR‘s handy guide.
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