Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Friday Night Lights and Parenthood developer/executive producer Jason Katims is returning to his comedy roots with About A Boy, a single-camera comedy based on the Nick Hornby book and 2002 movie. NBC has bought the project, from Katims’ True Jack Prods; Universal TV; and Working Title and Tribeca Prods, the companies that produced the Hugh Grant-starring feature. Written and executive produced by Emmy-winner Katims, About A Boy follows the relationship between a bachelor man-child and the young boy who moves in next door with his kooky single mother. Katims’ head of development, Michelle Lee, will serve as producer.

This is the second stab at developing About A Boy as a comedy series. In 2003, Fox ordered a presentation written by Matthew Carlson and starring Patrick Dempsey.

This marks the third sale for Uni TV-based True Jack Prods this season. The first, two — a Katims-penned spy dramedy and an edgy, legal romantic comedy penned by Sarah Watson — went to Fox. 

While all of Katims’ shows carry his signature humor, he has been looking to do a half-hour comedy. When CAA-repped Katims started out as a playwright, many of his plays were comedies. His first feature, The Pallbearer, also was a comedy before he segued to more dramatic fare. I hear he liked About A Boy for his first half-hour comedy effort as it’s in line with the tone of his work, and he loves exploring surrogate father-son relationships on his shows.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.