EXCLUSIVE: Fox has greenlighted its first live-action comedy series in more than two years. The network has handed a series order to Mammoth, from the Emmy-winning Modern Family creator/executive producer Christopher Lloyd and writer/executive producer/writer Danny Zuker, for the 2027-28 season. The show, based on the BBC Two comedy of the same name, is produced by Fox Entertainment Studios, with BBC Studios Los Angeles executive producing.

Written by Lloyd and Zucker, Mammoth follows Coach Tony Mammoth, a larger-than-life high school gym teacher whose life is put on ice in 1983 when he’s buried in a freak ski avalanche. Forty years later, he thaws out to a world that has completely changed… but he’s convinced it really didn’t need to. Still clinging to life in the ‘80s – complete with his Burt Reynolds moustache and treasured Trans-AM –- Mammoth returns to the job he loves, only to discover that today’s rules, relationships, and realities bear little resemblance to the world he once knew.

“Tony Mammoth genuinely believes he mastered manhood the first time around, making his new reality the ultimate wakeup call and greatest challenge in an otherwise flawless life. He’s charming, wildly self-assured, hopelessly out of step and, despite his many blind spots, impossible not to root for,” Lloyd said.

Added Zuker, “Tony gets the second chance so many people wish for, only to find that his bravado doesn’t quite match his new reality. We love his shameless confidence, his fascination with a world he barely recognizes, and the big heart underneath it all. He’s a lot. We can’t wait to bring him to Fox.”

Lloyd and Zuker, who serve as showrunners, executive produce alongside Mark Linsey and Angie Stephenson of BBC Studios Los Angeles, and Welsh comedian Mike Bubbins, creator and star of the original Mammoth series, which is headed to a third season on BBC Two.

“The world moved on. Tony Mammoth didn’t,” said Michael Thorn, President of Fox Television Network. “That’s an incredibly funny premise, but what Chris and Danny have developed is so much richer: a wildly original comedy with huge laughs, deep heart, and characters everyone will relate to, whether they like it or not. I look forward to apologizing on Tony’s behalf for years to come.”

The U.S. adaptation was put together by BBC Studios Los Angeles, which got Lloyd on board before the project was taken out and set up at Fox last year. In line with the network’s emphasis on content ownership, Mammoth — just like Fox’s other live-action comedy series Animal Control — is fully owned, produced by Fox Entertainment Studios and distributed worldwide by Fox Entertainment Global.

Mammoth was among several half-hour projects, along with Thunderjacks, King Gary and an Andrea Savage show, that were heating up leading up to the May upfront. At the time, the Fox leadership opted to not pick up a new live-action comedy while cancelling sophomore Going Dutch, leaving Animal Control, starring Joel McHale, as the network’s only live-action comedy series on the 2026-27 schedule.

During the Fox upfront call, Thorn and Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade spoke about “taking a step back” to evolve the production model for live-action comedies “built for linear today” the way they have with drama and unscripted.

There has been chatter over the past several months about Fox looking for comedies that can be made at a modest cost, with per-episode price tags rumored to be anywhere between $1.1 million and $1.6 million.

According to sources, Mammoth was a pre-existing project and does not fall into the framework of the financially efficient model Fox has been contemplating; it is likely to be applied to a new series greenlight in the coming months.

This marks a reunion for Lloyd and Zuker who worked together for the entire 11-season run of ABC’s Modern Family, sharing in the show’s five consecutive Emmy wins for Outstanding Comedy Series. Lloyd was executive producer and co-showrunner alongside series co-creator Steven Levitan; Zuker started as a co-executive producer and was promoted to executive producer in Season 3. Lloyd previously served as executive producer and showrunner of NBC’s Frasier. Across Modern Family and Frasier, he has won a total of 12 Emmys.

Mammoth also marks Lloyd’s return to Fox almost two decades after he and Levitan created and executive produced the 2007 sitcom Back To You starring Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer. Upset by the decision of the network’s regime at the time to cancel that show after one season, the duo opted not to pitch there their followup project, Modern Family.

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