‘Raised By Wolves’ Comedy From Diablo Cody & Berlanti Prods. Set At ABC
Juno writer Diablo Cody has teamed with Berlanti Productions for Raised By Wolves, an adaptation of the 2015 UK comedy series, which has landed at ABC with a script commitment plus penalty.
Written by Cody, Raised By Wolves centers on Sheila Gable, a single parent and one tough mother. Joining Sheila are her dad and five offbeat kids as they try to survive on a shoestring budget in a (not) beautiful Midwestern town.
The half-hour, single-camera project is part of a push into comedy for Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Prods., which has six drama series on the air. It is expected to be the first of several half-hour projects taken out this year by the Warner Bros TV-based company, which Berlanti runs with president Sarah Schechter.
It was Schechter who fell in love with the Channel 4 series Raised By Wolves, which was created and written by popular British columnist and author Caitlin Moran and her sister Caroline based on their childhood experience (you can watch a trailer for the first of the show’s two seasons below).
As she began chasing rights to the series, Schechter reached out to Cody about joining the project as a producer as Schechter felt that Caitlin Moran shared a similar sensibility with the Oscar winner and the show featured the type of central characters Cody knows and does very well — smart teenagers and a strong mother. Not only did Cody come on board, she offered to write the adaptation. After securing U.S. rights from UK producer Big Talk in a competitive situation, Berlanti Prods. went on to develop the project internally, with Cody writing a pilot script, tapping into her Midwest upbringing to transplant the comedy from the British Midlands to middle America. Caitlin Moran was involved in the process, giving notes.
With its strong mother at the center and blue-collar setting, Raised By Wolves draws parallels to Roseanne, making ABC a logical home for the adaptation. Cody, Berlanti Schechter and the Morans executive produce alongside Big Talk’s Kenton Allen and Matthew Justice as well as Caroline Leddy, who exec produced the original series alongside Allen, for Warner Bros TV, Berlanti Prods. and Big Talk Prods.
This is the second sale for Berlanti Prods. this season, joining drama Criminal, co-written by Blindspot creator Martin Gero, which has a put pilot commitment, also at ABC. The company’s series on the air include Arrow, The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow, Supergirl and Riverdale on the CW and Blindspot on NBC. In comedy, the company in 2011 fielded a half-hour project written by Berlanti and Greg Mailins, which went to pilot at CBS.
In TV, Cody created the Showtime comedy series United States Of Tara and co-created with Tig Noraro the comedian’s upcoming Amazon series One Mississippi. In features, she recently wrote the Meryl Streep-starrer Ricki And The Flash. Cody and Berlanti Prods. are repped by WME.
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