'Office' Writer-Producer Justin Spitzer Signs Overall Deal With UMS

EXCLUSIVE: The Office writer-producer Justin Spitzer has signed a two-year overall deal with the studio behind the NBC comedy, Universal Media Studios. Under the seven-figure deal, Spitzer’s first, he will continue on The Office while also developing new series projects. Spitzer’s only previous stab at development was selling a comedy spec to ABC six years ago.

Spitzer’s career path so far has been determined by two spec scripts. A Scrubs spec he wrote got to the show’s creator/executive producer Bill Lawrence eight years ago and became his first produced script. Then the spec he sold to ABC got in the hands of The Office executive producer Greg Daniels who, based on it, hired Spitzer on The Office at the beginning of Season 3. Spitzer has gone through the ranks and is being upped to a co-executive producer for next season. On the development side, Spitzer, repped by ICM and attorney Jared Levine, is working on a comedy project with UMS-based producer Peter Traugott who, six years ago, produced Spitzer’s ABC spec through Brillstein Entertainment.