James Burrows To Direct At Least 3 Pilots
James Burrows continues to rule pilot season. The veteran director has booked three multi-camera comedy pilots — that is a third of all multicam pilots picked up by the broadcast networks so far this season — and may also helm a fourth. Burrows is set for NBC’s Victor Fresco pilot starring Sean Hayes and CBS’ Dana Klein pilot Friends With Better Lives and untitled Greg Garcia multi-camera pilot. The Sean Hayes project, from Uni TV, stars Hayes as a dad trying to figure out how to parent his 14-year-old daughter, who just moved in, while navigating a temperamental new boss at work. Burrows and Hayes have a shorthand — Burrows directed the pilot for Hayes’ previous NBC comedy series, Will & Grace, and stayed on as executive producer/director for the entire run of the Emmy-winning series.
Friends With Better Lives, from 20th TV and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, revolves around a group of thirtysomething friends who each think the other has it better. Greg Garcia’s project, from CBS TV Studios, centers on a recently divorced man whose life is complicated when his parents decide to move in with him. It’s no surprise that ICM Partners-repped Burrows is directing 2 out of 3 multi-camera pilots picked up by CBS so far — the pilots for 4 of the network’s 5 comedy series currently on the schedule — The Big Bang Theory, Two And A Half Men, 2 Broke Girls and Mike & Molly – were helmed by him. The other CBS multi-camera pilot, Chuck Lorre’s Mom, is directed by another multicam veteran, Pam Fryman, the director behind CBS’ fifth comedy series on the air, How I Met Your Mother, since the pilot.
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