NBC Buys Cyrus Voris/Ethan Reiff Shanghai Cop Drama, Comedy From 'Sitter' Scribes

EXCLUSIVE: NBC is China-bound. The network has bought a cop drama project set in Shanghai from writers Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff. The project is about a pair of fugitive recovery agents working in China’s (and the world’s) largest city, population 23 million. It stems from a blind script deal Voris and Reiff had at NBC and will be produced by Universal TV. Voris and Reiff had been thinking about doing a cop show set in China for a while, and separately new NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke had been looking to do a show set in the Asian country for some time, originally as top development executive at 20th TV. UPDATED: Voris and Reiff have an extensive background and knowledge of China working on Chinese-themed projects, including co-writing the story for DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda, which was set in old China. The new project reunites UTA-repped Voris and Reiff with NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt. The two co-created and executive produced the Showtime drama Sleeper Cell, which ran for two seasons while Greenblatt was at the helm of the pay cable network.

On the comedy side, NBC has bought Animal Kingdom, a vet hospital half-hour from writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, Universal TV, and Scot Armstrong and Ravi Nandan’s studio-based American Work. The project centers on a vet who lives by the laws of the jungle. Gatewood and Tanaka, repped by UTA and Management 360, wrote the upcoming Jonah Hill comedy The Sitter and also have been attached to a Baywatch reboot.