Deadline reported that ABC has passed on its multi-camera comedy pilot starting stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze, from The Carmichael Show creators Jerrod Carmichael and Ari Katcher and showrunner Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. Drew Goddard directed the pilot, produced by 20th Century Fox TV in association with Brillstein Entertainment Partners, which received an off-cycle pilot order in late May.
While ABC has opted not to go forward with the Nate Bargatze project, the network recently reaffirmed its commitment to moving its development process off-cycle, which the network has rebranded “second cycle.”
The Nate Bargatze comedy, penned by Bargatze, Carmichael, Katcher and Bargatze’s writing partner Dan Shaki, was originally set up at Fox during the 2017-18 development season with a put pilot commitment. It did not go to pilot and was pursued by ABC, which had been looking to work with Carmichael and was on the market for blue-collar, Middle America family comedies. With Sanchez-Witzel coming on board, the project moved to ABC in summer 2018 with a put pilot commitment.
It narrowly missed the cut for a pilot order but there was a lot of enthusiasm for Bargatze at ABC, leading to the off-cycle order with Goddard directing. He, Carmichael and Sanchez-Witzel all have overall deals at 20th TV, part of Disney Television Studios.
Based on the life and comedy of Bargatze, the series was to follow Nate and his wife who choose to move from California to Nate’s native Tennessee, where his parents still live, to raise their six-year-old daughter. They find the pursuit of a simple life to be much more complicated than they imagined.
Executive producing the pilot were Bargatze, Carmichael, Sanchez-Witzel, who will served as showrunner, Goddard and Brillstein’s Tim Sarkes and Alex Murray.
The Carmichael Show premiered on NBC on August 26, 2015 and ended its run on August 9, 2017, after three seasons and 32 episodes. Starring Carmichael, the multi-camera show followed a fictional version of his family and was set in Charlotte, North Carolina.