John Hamburg Inks Deal With Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Boards ‘Los Hermanos’ Comedy At Showtime

Writer-director John Hamburg (Meet the Parents franchise) and his production company, Particular Pictures, have signed an exclusive production deal with Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Under the pact, Hamburg and Kaplan will identify projects to develop and produce together for broadcast, cable and digital platforms. In addition to executive producing, Hamburg would also direct, subject to availability and creative approval.

Hamburg and Kaplan’s first collaboration under the agreement is Los Hermanos, the brothers comedy Kapital has in development at Showtime. Hamburg has come on board to direct and executive produce the project, written/exec produced by Hayes Davenport and exec produced by Kapital’s Kaplan and Dana Honor.

The production deal formalizes a long-standing relationship between Hamburg and Kaplan who have teamed to develop two comedy projects in the past, The Henchman at Fox, from writer Dan Kopelman who has new CBS comedy series Me, Myself & I with Kapital; and 30 And Counting at NBC with Justin Adler, creator of the Kapital-produced CBS series Life In Pieces.

“It feels like so many of the stories I’m interested in exploring are viable right now on network TV, cable and streaming,” Hamburg said. “What excites me about this partnership with Aaron is the freedom to create all different kinds of content at whatever home best suits the material. As soon as Kaplan focused his piercing green eyes on me and proposed this non-traditional deal, I was in.”

Kaplan, who has seven series on five networks — broadcast, premium cable and streaming — stressed the importance of being destination-specific. “John is a true triple threat – as a writer, director and producer, he recognizes today, more than ever, the great value of independence, and I’m so excited ‎he has chosen to work with Kapital,” Kaplan said.

Kapital, which entered a joined venture with CBS Corp. earlier this year, continues to operate as an independent production company run by Kaplan.

This is Kapital’s first production deal with a writer-director-producer. The company has pacts with producers Tracy Katsky and Wendi Trilling, both of which have yielded a series, Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix and 9JKL on CBS, respectively. Additionally, Kapital has a joint venture with prolific creator/actress Sharon Horgan (Divorce, Catastrophe) and Clelia Mountford’s Merman Films which is a strategic partnership intended to lay down a global footprint for the two companies both in the U.S. and Europe.