Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: ABC is finalizing a script deal for a comedy that will star Mark Consuelos and be executive produced by Consuelos and his wife, Live With Kelly & Michael host Kelly Ripa, through their Milojo Prods. Peter Murrieta will write the project based on an idea by Aaron Kaplan of Kapital Entertainment. Murrieta and Kaplan will executive produce with Consuelos and Ripa.

The half-hour, produced by ABC Studios, centers on a blue-collar handyman from Queens (Consuelos) who enters the moneyed world of the Upper West Side, where he and his son become part of a non-traditional family unit. ABC Studios is producing. This is the second time ABC and ABC Studios are developing a comedy starring Consuelos and executive produced by him, Ripa and Kaplan. Two years ago, the network bought Port Love, a workplace comedy written by Jeffrey Hodes and Nastaran Dibai.

All My Children alum Consuelos, repped by CAA, Brian Liebman and Joe Dapello, is recurring on FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum. For Murrieta, repped by CAA and 3 Arts, this is the second broadcast project this season — he also has a semi-autobiographical multi-generational family show set up at NBC. He served as showrunner on the first three seasons of Disney Channel’s Emmy-winning Wizards Of Waverly Place. Ripa is with CAA and Dapello. The Consuelos project adds to an already expansive broadcast sale portfolio for Kaplan this season that features more than a dozen projects, including two pilot production commitments and one put pilot.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.