Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: With the network buying season winding down, heavyweights Greg Malins and Greg Berlanti scored a put pilot commitment at CBS for a half-hour project the two will co-write and executive produce. The multi-camera comedy hails from Warner Bros TV, where Malins and Berlanti are based. It centers on notorious womanizer Nick who, after surviving a health scare, realizes that “The One” he has never found is actually his best friend of 15 years, Wendy. Problem is Wendy is engaged to a guy Nick likes, she and Nick own a business together and their attempt at dating back in college was a disaster.

It marks the second sale to CBS this season for both Malins and Berlanti. Former Friends and How I Met Your Mother executive producer Malins is co-writing/executive producing with Bill Lawrence a multi-camera workplace comedy that recently landed a pilot production commitment from the Eye network. And Everwood creator Berlanti is executive producing a Nick Wootton-penned cop drama, which has a put pilot commitment at CBS.

Malins has strong ties to CBS. In addition to his stint as an executive producer on the CBS/20th TV How I Met Your Mother, he also serves as a consulting producer on the network’s hot new comedy series Two Broke Girls, from WBTV.

This is the first half-hour comedy effort by Berlanti, who has made his mark on the hourlong side as showrunner on Brothers & Sisters and Dawson’s Creek and co-creator of Eli Stone and No Ordinary Family, among other series. The sale takes Berlanti’s 2011 batting average to 4-for-4 in pilot commitments this development season — Berlanti’s first at WBTV — out of 4 pitches taken out. The other 3 are on the drama side, all penned by close Berlanti collaborators: a high-concept crime drama project at NBC with writer Maggie Friedman, a legal drama at Fox penned by Marc Guggenheim and Wootton’s cop drama at CBS. Malins and Berlanti are with WME.

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