‘Desperate Housewives’ Showrunner Bob Daily And Mark Gordon Sell Drama To ABC

EXCLUSIVE: Former Desperate Housewives executive producer/ showrunner Bob Daily is staying in the ABC/ABC Studios fold, teaming with the executive producer of another hit ABC drama that started as a Desperate Housewives companion, Grey’s Anatomy‘s Mark Gordon.

The untitled hourlong drama, from ABC Studios and studio-based Mark Gordon Co., revolves around three diverse families whose lives get gloriously messy when they discover that they share a biological father, a successful bachelor in his 40s who’s completely unprepared to embrace the family he never knew he wanted. Daily will co-write the script with feature writer Pierce Gardner (Dan In Real Life). Daily, Gordon and Nicholas Pepper are the executive producers.

Frasier alum Daily joined Desperate Housewives at the beginning of Season 3 as co-executive producer and was upped to executive producer a year later. He quickly established himself as the No.2 to creator/executive producer Marc Cherry, handling the day-to-day on the show while Cherry was busy with development and taking over as showrunner when Cherry left after Season 7. WME-repped Daily wrote Part 1 of the Desperate Housewives‘ series finale; Part 2 was written by Cherry. Paradigm-repped Gardner is currently writing Masterpiece, an animated feature for Rainmaker Entertainment.  ICM Partners-repped Mark Gordon Co. recently sold a female soap from Make It Or Break It creator Holly Sorensen to ABC.