EXCLUSIVE: I hear that HBO is finalizing a deal for a pilot order to The Viagra Diaries, a half-hour comedy created by Sex and the City creator/executive producer Darren Star and starring Oscar winner Goldie Hawn. The project is looking for a director and eyes spring production start in New York. Based on the book by Barbara Rose Brooker, Viagra Diaries centers on a woman (Hawn) who, after her husband has a “mid-life crisis” at 65 and leaves her, struggles with being single for the first time in 35 years.
The novel was first eyed for a feature, with husband-and-wife duo Alan and Wendy Riche and their son Peter attached to produce. Independent TV producer Aaron Kaplan (Terra Nova) then took over the property and, with the Riches still on board, took it to Star who came on board to adapt it as a comedy series. Star and Kaplan pitched the project to HBO and convinced Hawn to star in what would be her first role in almost a decade, since the 2002 movie The Banger Sisters. Star, Hawn, Kaplan, Hawn, her managers Brian Medavoy and Alan Nevins as well as Alan, Wendy and Peter Riche are executive producing. After a start in television on Good Morning, World and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Hawn transitioned to features, starring in a string of comedies and earning an Oscar in 1970 for Cactus Flower. Hawn and Star, who executive produces with Kaplan ABC’s midseason dramedy GCB, are repped by UTA. When official, The Viagra Diaries will join HBO’s current crop of pilots, Noah Baumbach’s drama The Corrections, produced by Scott Rudin and starring Chris Cooper, Dianne Wiest and Ewan McGregor, and Doug Ellin’s comedy 40 starring Ed Burns, Michael Imperioli, Adrian Pasdar and Michael Rapaport.
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