Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: After successfully adapting British workplace comedy The Office for NBC, Greg Daniels is taking on another half-hour British format for the network, this time a family comedy. I hear that NBC has put in development a U.S. version of the UK series Friday Night Dinner with Daniels at the helm. It is unclear whether Daniels will write, co-write or supervise the writing of the adaptation for UMS. Created by Robert Popper, Friday Night Dinner, which debuted on Channel 4 in February, centers on the Goodmans, a traditional but not strictly observant Jewish family, and chronicles their Shabbat dinners. Every Friday night, brothers Adam and Jonny reluctantly visit their parents — mom Jackie, who is obsessed with Masterchef, and dad Martin, who loves to walk around shirtless — for a home-cooked meal. Adding to the gallery of oddball characters is a grandmother who struts her stuff in a bikini and eccentric neighbor Jim who constantly interrupts dinner. Friday Night Dinner, which has been renewed by Channel 4 for a second season, airs in the U.S. on BBC America. The show hails from Big Talk Prods, the UK production company also behind another Channel 4 comedy series that is being remade by NBC, Free Agents. NBC’s version, starring Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn, was picked up to series and launches this fall. Daniels is expected to executive produce Friday Night Dinner with his producing partner Howard Klein, Popper and Big Talk. The project falls under the new two-year overall deal Daniels recently signed with UMS. In addition to developing and executive producing the Emmy-winning The Office, WME-repped Daniels also co-created and executive produces another NBC Thursday comedy series, Parks and Recreation. Both shows are nominated for best comedy series Emmys, making Daniels the first comedy writer-producer to have two shows competing against each other in that category since 1975, when James L. Brooks and Allan Burns were nominated for Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda. Additionally, Daniels is nominated in the comedy writing category for penning Steve Carell’s farewell episode on The Office. Here is a trailer for the British Friday Night Dinner:

 

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