Shirley MacLaine & Matthew Broderick To Topline ‘Bettyville’ Dramedy Series For Paramount TV
EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Television has put together Bettyville, a dramedy TV series project that has Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine and Tony winner Matthew Broderick are attached to star. The adaptation of journalist George Hodgman’s best-selling memoir, will be written by John Hoffman (Looking, Grace and Frankie), who will serve as executive producer and showrunner on the potential series, set to film in Santa Fe, NM. Hodgman also will executive produce, alongside Archer Gray’s Anne Carey and Amy Nauiokas (The Diary of a Teenage Girl). The project is currently being shopped to networks.
Bettyville
follows George Hodgman (Broderick) after leaving Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri to care for his aging mother Betty (MacLaine). He expected to be away for only a few weeks, but life conspired to keep him there, armed with not much more than a (mostly) willing heart, a broken past to sort out, and two irascible personalities: his own, and Betty’s. The funny and heartbreaking memoir chronicles the mother-son journey, capturing truths about family, identity, and our current American landscape.
“Paramount TV could not be in better hands than those of Shirley MacLaine and Matthew Broderick, two incredibly versatile talents who know how to marry drama with comedy, which is at the center of this fantastic story,” said Paramount TV president Amy Powell. “We’re eager to watch as Shirley and Matthew bring these complex and captivating characters to life.”
Hoffman, a former actor, was co-executive producer on the HBO comedy series Looking and currently serves in the same capacity on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie. He also co-wrote and directed the feature Good Boy for MGM and The Jim Henson Co.
Archer Gray’s upcoming projects include 20th Century Women written and directed by Mike Mills and starring Annette Bening.
MacLaine is repped by ICM Partners, Broderick is repped by CAA and Management 360, Hoffman is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content and Michael Gendler; Hodgman is repped by Brooke Ehrlich Artist Management and Betsy Lerner at Dunow Carlson and Lerner.
Paramount TV has two pending series based on literary properties, The Alienist at TNT, which has a straight-to-series order, and Jack Ryan, based on the Tom Clancy character, which is awaiting a pickup at Amazon with John Krasinski set to play the lead. Additional literary titles currently in development at Paramount TV include Lindbergh, Shutter Island (show titled “Ashecliffe”) , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory, Spoonbenders, and All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and The Rise of an Independent Nation.
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