EXCLUSIVE: Amplify Pictures‘ TV series revival of Ben Schwartz‘s Funny or Die comedy The Earliest Show has been officially greenlit, with the cast now rounded out.
Kevin Carroll (Widow’s Bay) and Ryan Gaul (The Last O.G.) are joining Schwartz and Lauren Lapkus as series regulars, Henry Winkler (Barry) and Brandon Scott Jones taking recurring roles.
Amplify Pictures, which initially commissioned scripts for a six-part TV series, has been joined by another indie studio, Stay Tuned, to officially greenlight the production, with the pair fully co-financing and jointly taking it to market. Irony Point and Funny or Die are also attached.
Amplify’s model works by developing, financing, greenlighting and producing projects in-house, and then selling them to buyers – a strategy it has employed for the likes of HBO doc series 100 Foot Wave, Peabody-winning doc Come See Me in the Good Light and a suite of TV series. In effect, creators are able to keep more creative control and back-end for themselves.
Stay Tuned has set itself up in a similar manner, developing, financing and producing projects outside of the studio system that can market-ready for sale. The company is led by screenwriter Kenny Neibart, exec producer Douglas Banker and former CAA agent Barry Kotler.
The Earliest Show is based on the cult Funny or Die comedy, in which Schwartz and Lapkus played hosts of the U.S.’s earliest live morning show, starting at 3 a.m. sharp from their tiny upstate New York town. No major plot details on the new show have been revealed, though it will follow the same basic set-up, with Schwartz writing and directing all episodes.
Amplify CEO Joe Lewis called The Earliest Show “exactly the kind of bold, inventive series that indie TV was made for – wildly original, occasionally unhinged and undeniably hilarious.”
Executive producers include Amplify’s Lewis, Rachel Eggebeen, Colin King Miller and Luke Esselen; Neibart, Banker and Kotler from Stay Tuned; Daniel Powell and Alex Bach from Irony Point, which is overseeing physical production; Schwartz; and Funny or Die’s Ricardo Martinez, Ben Gigli and Jessica Renick.
From the new cast, Gaul is represented by Think Tank Management and attorney Ryan LeVine, while Jons is repped by CAA, Mosaic and Granderson des Rochers LLP.
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