‘Scrubs’ Reboot in Early Development at ABC From Bill Lawrence
Bill Lawrence is no Superman, but he is currently developing a reboot of his beloved sitcom “Scrubs” at ABC.
Variety has learned that Lawrence is working on a new iteration of the series via 20th Television for the broadcast network. The original series was produced by ABC Studios, which was recently absorbed into 20th TV as part of a restructuring undertaken by parent company Disney.
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Lawrence remains under his overall deal at Warner Bros. Television, with that studio carving out room for Lawrence to work with his former studio partners on “Scrubs.” According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Lawrence will not serve as showrunner on the new “Scrubs” should the project go to series. At this time, no other deals are in place and no cast members are yet attached.
“Scrubs” originally aired on NBC for its first seven seasons from 2001-2008, followed by two seasons at ABC from 2009-2010. The single-cam comedy took place at Sacred Heart Hospital and followed the interns, doctors, nurses, and the Janitor through their day-to-day lives at the hospital. The cast included Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes, Ken Jenkins, John C. McGinley, and Neil Flynn.
The series was often praised for its cutaway sequences tied to the daydreams of Braff’s character, J.D., with Braff also serving as the series’ narrator. The show was much beloved by both audiences and critics throughout its run, with “Scrubs” earning 17 Emmy nominations across its nine seasons. It has maintained its popularity long after it ended, with Braff and Faison launching the rewatch podcast “Fake Doctors, Real Friends” in 2020.
Since “Scrubs,” Lawrence has created or co-created shows like “Cougar Town,” which ran for six seasons, the critical smash hit “Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking” (renewed for a third season in October) and the recently-launched “Bad Monkey” starring Vince Vaughn, with all three of the latter shows airing on Apple TV+.
He is repped by CAA, Yorn Levine Barnes, and Mortimer PR.
In an interview with Variety in August, Lawrence joked that one reason he began to talk about a “Scrubs” reboot was tied to the future of “Ted Lasso.”
“The best thing about [questions about the future of ‘Ted Lasso’] is that it replaced, for a second, having to talk about whether or not ‘Scrubs’ was going to get rebooted,” Lawrence said. “The reason that I accidentally said, ‘Yeah, I think I’m going to figure this out the next six months’ about ‘Scrubs’ recently, was because I just wanted to stop talking about the ‘Ted Lasso’ thing.”
Variety also spoke with Braff in October ahead of the “Garden State” 20th anniversary concert, where the actors said he was “definitely” on board to return to “Scrubs.”
“The idea of getting back together with my friends and doing like 10 or 12 episodes of maybe one or two seasons, and just laughing with everyone? That sounds like a dream,” he said.
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