Fox Orders Pilots From Lee Daniels and Vali Chandrasekaran, Josh Safran, and Lil Rel Howery
Fox has given a pilot order to the single-camera comedy project that hails from Lee Daniels and Vali Chandrasekaran, as well as a multi-camera from Lil Rel Howery and a one-hour drama from Josh Safran, Variety has learned.
Based on the Israeli series “Nevsu,” Daniels and Chandrasekaran’s series entitled “Our People” follows a man from a bombastic African family who doesn’t have a world in their native language for “privacy” and his fiancee from a mid-western family as they try to build a normal life together — though nobody agrees on what “normal” means. The project received a put pilot commitment at the network in September.
Chandrasekaran will write in addition to executive producing. Daniels will also executive produce via his Lee Daniels Entertainment banner, with Yossi Vassa, Shai Ben-Atar and Liat Shavit, Pam Williams, and Marc Velez also executive producing Both Chandrasekaran and Daniels are currently set up under overall deals at 20th Century Fox TV.
This was one of four projects that Daniels had in development at Fox this year. He is also attached to three drama projects at the network, which are: “Victory,” set in the world of competitive gospel choirs with Julian Breece writing and executive producing; “East of Hope,” described as a multi-racial soap set in an all-American working class town with Peter Mattei writing and executive producing; and “Mason Dixon,” which follows a black politician’s wife and a blunt-talking good-ol’ boy who form an unlikely alliance, with Breece also writing and executive producing. Daniels is also the executive producer on the Fox shows “Empire” and “Star,” the former of which being the highest-rated show on the network.
Chandrasekaran is a writer and executive producer on ABC’s “Modern Family.” His other credits include the comedies “30 Rock” and “My Name Is Earl.”
Daniels is repped by CAA. Chandrasekaran is repped by UTA.
Additionally, Fox has ordered “Mixtape,” from writer and executive producer Josh Safran, to pilot.
Coming from Annapurna Television in association with 20th Century Fox, “Mixtape” is a one-hour “romantic musical drama” that looks at a disparate group of interconnected people in contemporary Los Angeles, through the lens of the music that defines who they are.
“Mixtape” also sees Megan Ellison and Sue Naegle executive producing, along with co-executive producer Ali Krug.
“Rel,” from writer, executive producer and star Howery, as well as writers and executive producers Kevin Barnett and Josh Rabinowitz and executive producer and showrunner Mike Scully, is a multi-camera comedy receiving a pilot order, too.
In it, Howery is a prideful, self-made success who lives by the code to “always believe in yourself and great things will come” but finds that attitude gets put to the test when he learns his wife his having an affair with his barber. The show sees him trying to rebuild his life post-divorce as a long distance single father on the South Side of Chicago.
Inspired by Howery’s real life, “Rel” also has Jerrod Carmichael on-board as an executive producer. The pilot comes from 20th Century Fox Television.
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