Yahoo Movies ABC Boss On ‘L.A. Law’ Not Moving Forward, Staying In Business With Comedian Jo Koy & Eyeing Pilots For Midseason
L.A. Law not moving forward at ABC was one of the surprises of this pilot season.
ABC boss Craig Erwich told Deadline that “unfortunately the pilot just did not come together as we had hoped it would.”
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The reboot, which was headlined by Blair Underwood, reprising his role as attorney Jonathan Rollins, had a high bar to hit with big expectations. The original series’ Corbin Bernsen also reprised his role as Arnie Becker in the pilot alongside Hari Nef, Toks Olagundoye, Ian Duff, John Harlan Kim and Juliana Harkavey, and Kacey Rohl.
The pilot was written by Marc Guggenheim and Ubah Mohamed and directed by Anthony Hemingway.
It followed the law firm of McKenzie Brackman — now named Becker Rollins — as it reinvented itself as a litigation firm specializing in only the most high-profile, boundary-pushing and incendiary cases.
Underwood, Guggenheim and Mohamed executive produced alongside Hemingway via Anthony Hemingway Productions and Dayna Bochco and Jesse Bochco via Steven Bochco Productions. 20th Television was the studio and is now shopping the project to other outlets.
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Another project that was passed on is half-hour comedy Josep starring comedian Jo Koy.
The comedy was built around Koy playing a character loosely based on himself, as a recently divorced Filipino American nurse attempting to navigate dating, fatherhood and a very Filipino mother who loves to “help.”
Steve Joe, Randall Park and Michael Golamco were the writers-executive producers. Josep also was exec produced by Melvin Mar, who has been the driver of the project, Kourtney Kang, Jake Kasdan, Hieu Ho, Koy and his manager Joe Meloche. 20th TV was the studio.
The network is, however, still looking to remain in business with Koy. Erwich called him a “incredible comedian”. “We haven’t figured out what the next steps are yet, but we’ll get to that next week when we get back [from New York Upfronts].”
Elsewhere, the Disney-owned network still has four to five drama pilots in production, including Will Trent, The Company You Keep starring Milo Ventimiglia, a national parks series and a therapy drama from Kay Oyegun as well as The Son In Law comedy starring Chris Sullivan. Erwich said that these projects would be in consideration for midseason.
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