

EXCLUSIVE: Top TV director Beth McCarthy-Miller is making her first foray into network development with a single-camera comedy project at ABC through ABC Studios. Haught Mess, written by Ellen Rapoport, is an adult family comedy centered on a woman who is caught between her new boyfriend and her inability to say “no” to her siblings and mother. Rapoport and McCarthy-Miller are executive producing, with McCarthy-Miller set to direct the potential pilot. This past season, McCarthy-Miller directed 3 pilots, ABC’s Man Up and Work It and Nickelodeon’s How To Rock, all of which went to series. McCarthy-Miller is best known for her directing work on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, which has earned her a total of 6 Emmy nominations, most recently this year for the live 30 Rock. CAA reps McCarthy-Miller and Rapoport who is managed by Management 360.
Also at ABC, the network has bought a comedy script from writer Jeff Lowell (Just Shoot Me) and Brillstein Entertainment, which produced the NBC workplace comedy. The ABC Studios project centers on a politically correct modern-day guy who is haunted by the ghost of his father – a 1950’s “winner,” who coaches him on life and love. Lowell, JoAnn Alfano and Daniel Rappaport exec produce.
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The ABC Studios project centers on a politically correct modern-day guy who is haunted by the ghost of his father – a 1950’s “winner,” who coaches him on life and love…
This is why I can’t sell a pilot… I’m not smart enough to think up something this dumb.
No disrespect intended, sincerely, but what makes Ellen R such a get? People obviously like her but has she written anything that’s been produced in a decade?
Ellen Rapoport’s script Desperados was on the Black List last year and was probably the funniest script I’d read in that decade you’re so misinformed about. She’s on everyone’s short list for a reason.
she and her husband michael seitzman are massive self-promoters. so that’s part of it – why does abc studios give him deal after deal without his getting anything on the air?
and she wrote a “female hangover” that made it to the blacklist a few years ago. no idea if it was good, but i think it’s getting made. so that’s to her credit.
Another series about nothing.