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SHOWTIME ORDERS NEW COMEDY PILOT SMILF, BASED ON THE AWARD-WINNING SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FROM FRANKIE SHAW
LOS ANGELES – August 11, 2016 – Today, SHOWTIME announced that it has ordered a new comedy pilot based on Frankie Shaw’s Sundance Film Festival Jury Award-winning short film SMILF. Shaw will star, write, produce and direct the semi-autobiographical pilot, with Oscar® nominee Michael London (Sideways), and Emmy® nominees Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (The Office, Bad Teacher) executive producing. Set in Boston, SMILF will take a raw look at a single, 20-something whose desires for relationships, sex, and a career collide with the realities of young, single motherhood. The pilot will be produced by ABC Signature as a co-production with Showtime. The announcement was made by David Nevins, President and CEO, Showtime Networks Inc. at the 2016 Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour.
Frankie Shaw is a Boston-born writer, actress, director and producer currently based in Los Angeles. SMILF is based off Shaw’s award-winning Sundance short of the same name, which won the Sundance Jury Award in 2015. Shaw also wrote and directed the 2016 short Too Legit starring Zoe Kravitz, which premiered at Sundance in 2016. Shaw also recently wrapped a supporting role in the feature film Stronger directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
About ABC Signature:
ABC Signature is ABC Studios’ boutique division, spearheading development and production in premium and basic cable, emerging platforms and off-cycle, direct to series programming. They are currently filming “Guerrilla” on location in London written and directed by John Ridley for Sky Atlantic and Showtime starring Freida Pinto, Babou Ceesay and Idris Elba. Marvel Studios and ABC Signature received a straight to series order for “Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger,” which will go into production for Freeform next year. Signature’s most recent credits include “Dead of Summer” from executive producers Eddy Kitsis & Adam Horowitz and Ian Goldberg currently airing on Freeform and the Emmy nominated HBO film “Confirmation” starring Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce.
About Showtime Networks:
Showtime Networks Inc. (SNI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CBS Corporation, owns and operates the premium television networks SHOWTIME®, THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ and FLIX®, and also offers SHOWTIME ON DEMAND®, THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ ON DEMAND and FLIX ON DEMAND®, and the network's authentication service SHOWTIME ANYTIME®. Showtime Digital Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SNI, operates the stand-alone streaming service SHOWTIME®. SHOWTIME is currently available to subscribers via cable, DBS and telco providers, and as a stand-alone streaming service through Apple®, Roku®, Amazon and Google. Consumers can also subscribe to SHOWTIME via Hulu, Sony PlayStation® Vue and Amazon Prime Video. SNI also manages Smithsonian Networks™, a joint venture between SNI and the Smithsonian Institution, which offers Smithsonian Channel™, and offers Smithsonian Earth™ through SN Digital LLC. SNI markets and distributes sports and entertainment events for exhibition to subscribers on a pay-per-view basis through SHOWTIME PPV. For more information, go to www.SHO.com.
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