Nellie Andreeva

Andy Samberg Fox Comedy Pilot StarEXCLUSIVE: In a big early casting coup this broadcast development season, Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg is set as the lead of Fox‘s untitled Mike Schur/Dan Goor comedy pilot. The single-camera comedy, written by the Parks And Recreation duo of co-creator/exec producer/showrunner Schur and executive producer Goor, is about a diverse group of detectives in a precinct at the very edge of New York City. Emmy winner Samberg will play the lead detective. He will also serve as a producer of the comedy, from Universal TV, which is executive produced by Schur, Goor and 3 Arts’ David Miner. “Andy’s hilarious, and he was the first guy we thought of when we designed the part,” Schur and Goor said. “From the moment we mentioned his name, everyone at Universal Television and Fox was 100% on-board. Andy loved the pitch, and it all came together really quickly. We couldn’t be happier.” Schur and Goor have worked with Samberg before — he guest starred in a 2010 episode of Parks & Rec.

In a fierce biggest bidding war, Schur and Goor’s pitch landed at Fox in August with a rich pilot production commitment. The casting of Samberg will no doubt turn that into a pilot order once the script is completed.

During his seven-year stint on Saturday Night Live, which he left this summer, Samberg, along with his Lonely Island cohorts Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, helped usher the venerable sketch comedy show into the digital age with their viral digital shorts, including megahit “D*** In A Box” featuring Timberlake, which won them an Emmy.

Samberg is currently starring on the hit BBC Three sitcom Cuckoo, where he plays an idle young American who marries a British girl and comes into conflict with his wife’s overprotective father (Greg Davies). He can also be seen in the features Celeste & Jesse Forever and is heard opposite Adam Sandler in the animated box office hit Hotel Transylvania after recently starring opposite Sandler in That’s My Boy. Samberg, Schur and Goor are repped by UTA. Samberg is managed by Mosaic, Schur by 3 Arts.

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