Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: The CW has bought Danny Hollywood, an hourlong project based on the successful Israeli half-hour series of the same name. Easy A writer Bert V Royal is writing the adaptation and is executive producing with Mark Harmon, Eric & Kim Tannenbaum and Martha Haight for CBS TV Studios. In the time travel fantasy-musical, a young documentary filmmaker travels back in time in order to prevent the death of her ’90s musical idol Danny Hollywood, and finds that the story is even more complicated than she thought. In the original, created and produced by Tmira Yardeni and Ori Gross, the 21st century documentary filmmaker travels back to 1968. The series aired 200 episodes on Yes Stars channel, more than tripping the channel’s average viewership over its run and garnering a 12% market share — six times the channel average — for its finale. (You can watch a trailer here.) Danny Hollywood is distributed internationally by Armoza Formats, whose game show format Still Standing became NBC’s new series Who’s Still Standing?, which premieres December 19. Both formats were sold in the US by Paradigm, which also reps Royal. This is Royal’s third project this season along with hourlong action thriller Dare at the CW and comedy The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth at ABC, which is exec produced by Jennifer Garner. NCIS star Harmon is in the first year of a production deal for his company Wings Prods at CBS TV Studios., which he signed in February as part of a new two-year contract to continue on the hit CBS drama. Harmon has had a pre-existing relationship with Eric Tannenbaum, and his offices on the CBS lot are next to those of Eric and Kim Tannenbaum’s studio-based Tannenbaum Co., leading to their collaboration on Danny Hollywood. The Tannenbaums are with CAA. This is the third broadcast project based on an Israeli format this development season, joining CBS’ Life Isn’t Everything, a comedy based on the successful Israeli sitcom of the same name; and NBC’s adaptation of mystery drama Timrot Ashan, aka Pillars Of Smoke.

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