EXCLUSIVE: After lengthy negotiations, NBC has closed a deal for Mixed Blessings, a single-camera comedy project executive produced by singer-songwriter John Legend and former NBC executive Teri Weinberg. Rob Pearlstein (Medium) will write and co-executive produce the comedy, which received interest from multiple networks before entering exclusive negotiations with NBC, reuniting Weinberg with the network where she served as EVP under Ben Silverman. John Legend and Mike Jackson are executive producing though their Get Lifted Film Co. and Weinberg’s through her Yellow Brick Road banner. Universal Television will produce.
Inspired by Jackson’s childhood growing up in suburban Philadelphia, Mixed Blessings centers on a prominent, black, street-bred hip-hop artist enjoying his single life who discovers that he has a teenage son and decides to connect with him and his white suburban family. The show explores the culture clash and the complicated journey of a father and son beginning their relationship as the dad soon discovers that fame, talent, and wealth get you nowhere when it comes to parenting. Pearlstein is writing feature comedy True North for Warner Bros with Imagine producing and Ed Helms attached to star. He will direct his original comedy script Someone Marry Barry in 2012. Before her stint NBC, Weinberg worked at then-upstart Reveille and produced a number of series, including Ugly Betty and The Tudors. She continues to serve as a co-executive producer on The Office. This marks the first major foray into TV for Legend and Jackson’s Get Lifted Film and the second high-profile comedy project at NBC this season that has an A-level singer attached as a producer. The network also has a karaoke comedy in the works, which is executive produced by Adam Levine. Jake Kasdan is attached to direct the potential pilot from a script by Gene Hong for 20th TV and Chernin Entertainment. Mixed Blessings was packaged by CAA.
Sounds promising.
When ya think of comedy, ya think of John Legend. Duh!
Yeah, mix a singer songwriter with no experience in television or film… Add a woman who is pretty well despised and derided in the business for having attained her previous position where she was woefully underqualified. And boom a bidding war for a tired premise.
Oooh celebrity discovers lost kid they don’t know how to parent. Only the topic of at least 2 pilots every year since forever.
I smell a hit. Or at least something that rhymes with it.
Somebody sounds like they’ve never gotten a show bought from a network before. Don’t worry Schnookums. It will happen : )
Not to be confused with the Canadian TV show that ran a couple of years ago also called Mixed Blessings which involved the blending of a white and native American family and starred the great Gary Basaraba.
This sounds relevant to our culture. Very fresh. Congrats. Good team, too.
The same premise is also the current story line for Dax Shepard’s Character in Parenthood.
Fantastic! Teri is a GREAT developer and an even better producer. Like a phoenix…
Are you kidding? This is straight out of that SNL sketch where Tim Meadows plays a rapper who goes to live with a lily-white suburban family.
Instant failure!
How about redoing something like Fresh Prince of Bel Air? Yeah it’s been done but it can’t get any worse than what NBC plans to do and is doing
I love how everyone gets so negative on here… it’s all just personal vendettas and failed jaded writers or execs… studios buy 90 pitches, and see what works on the page. This has just as much chance of being great as anything else. congrats to teri! and fuck the haters.
Read an early draft a little while ago and showed real potential, I’m glad it’s going forward — Michael Jackson is a real producing talent. Good for them.
Seems like a cross of Different Strokes and…
Larry, I’d like to see your stellar resume. I bet you’re not even on IMDB. What pisses me off are trolls like yourself all brave when they can hide under a fake name and on top of that have zero to back it up. Why don’t you stick to playing video games and telling your folks how things are looking bright while your serving people coffee.
Larry, I got one even better, take a coward who hides under the anonymity of a fake name, who has never sold anything in television or film… Add years of sitting on someone’s desk with no chance of a promotion and living in their parents basement and you got yourself a shot at cast on the Real World. Oh, and you can rhyme too!