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James Caan
ABC added to its pilot orders Friday, picking up a reboot of British comedy Spy and a sports-themed family comedy with James Caan in final negotiations.
The half-hour single-camera Spy comedy will be written by the creator behind the Sky1 series Simeon Goulden. The ABC series follows a well-intentioned father of a highly intelligent and verbal son, who also happens to be his complete opposite, inadvertently takes a job at the secret service in order to prove himself a worthy father. The series, now in its second season, has been distributed stateside on Hulu.
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Jimmy Mulville and Helen Williams are on board to executive produce alongside Goulden, who will pen the pilot for ABC Studios and Hat Trick Productions.
Meanwhile, the untitled Cullens comedy is a single-camera comedy about Terry Gannon, a strong-willed divorced single mother who has to move back home with her estranged father -- a beer-swilling former baseball player, when she reluctantly starts to coach her son's underdog little league team and is drawn back into the world of sports she vowed to leave behind. Brothers Mark and Robb Cullen (Las Vegas) will pen the script and executive produce alongside Kaptial Entertainment's Aaron Kaplan and 20th Television.
Caan is in final negotiations to star as the father, reuniting him with the Las Vegas duo
Friday's pickups join the previously announced five comedies, four dramas at the network, including Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D., which has already begun production.