Recent SAG lifetime achievement recipient and EGOT winner Rita Moreno has joined Amy Poehler's NBC pilot Old Soul. According to Deadline, Moreno will star opposite Natasha Lyonne as one of her elderly clients in the tailor-made role of Rita, "a flamboyant, larger-than-life Broadway vet who has been happily married to her writing partner/husband for over 50 years." David Wain is also signed on to direct the Old Soul pilot, which is the first project to get a pilot order from Amy Poehler's 3-year development deal with NBC. To catch up on the rest of pilot season, check out a complete breakdown here.
Comedy Central is looking to add another animated series. According to Deadline, the network has ordered a pilot from Bento Box Entertainment called Legends, described as "an urban animated comedy centering on a trio of high school basketball players who are legends in their own minds — and really, nowhere else. Freshman benchwarmers and friends Jamal, Grover, and Milk try and mostly fail to make an impression at Bluford High, whether it's on the court or with the ladies."
Created and developed by Simpsons animator Brad Abelson, Mike Clements (EP on The Life & Times of Tim), writer Michael Starrbury, and sports show producers Quinn Hawking and Josiah [...]
Not to be outdone by Rashida Jones's recent pilot order and casting in Steve Carell's TBS show, Parks and Rec's Rob Lowe has also gotten a pilot picked up by NBC. According to Deadline, Lowe is starring and executive producing the single-camera pilot called The Pro, which centers on "former tennis doubles champion 'Big Ben' Bertrahm, whose career flame-out and misguided investments have left him working as the pro at a tennis and gold club, where he tries to hustle and charm his way back into America's 1%." The pilot previously had a production commitment with the network with Larry Sanders Show/King of the Hill [...]
It's a good day for Cowboy Curtis fans. Deadline reports that ABC has ordered a pilot produced by Laurence Fishburne's Cinema Gypsy Productions called Black-ish. Starring Anthony Anderson — who costarred on the Jimmy Fallon-produced NBC show Guys With Kids last year — the half-hour single-cam show follows "an upper-middle class black man who struggles to raise his children with some sense of cultural identity despite constant contradictions and obstacles coming from his liberal wife, old-school father, and his own assimilated, color-blind kids." Kenya Barris (The Game, America's Next Top Model) will write the script and also serve as an executive producer. It's rumored that Fishburne [...]
