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Is Judd Apatow returning to his roots in television?
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Famed comedy movie director and writer Judd Apatow is reportedly returning to television. He is said to be negotiating with the American Internet television live streaming service Hulu to produce a new series to be called Love.
Love is Apatow’s own creation. It is a romantic comedy about complicated relationships which is expected to star Community Alum, Gillian Jacobs. The actress became available a few months ago when NBC canceled that show. Ironically, however, the program which Hulu declined to pick up has been resurrected by Yahoo for live streaming. As a result, she may pass on the new project.
But Jacobs’ contract for Community is about to expire leaving her free to take on a new project. As of yet, though, the actress has only been asked if she would be interested in the show.
This would be Apatow’s first foray into the production of original content for Internet live streaming. Hulu is following in the footsteps of Netflix in that area. Yahoo and Amazon have also produced their own television shows.
But Hulu has not been as successful as its competitors in the field of original programming, so perhaps it is banking on Apatow’s popularity and box office success to help it to better compete. Apatow, after all, has written and directed some of the biggest comedy hits since 2000 such as, The 40 Year old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), Funny People (2009), and This is 40 (2012).
The very fact that someone of Apatow’s reputation is willing to do an Internet based series is a sign of how television is changing. The American broadcast networks have long since lost their dominance to original programming on many different cable channels.
This would also mark a return to his roots for Apatow who began his career as a writer and producer on such hit shows as Lary Sanders and the critically acclaimed, but short lived Freaks and Geaks. Apatow has not produced a television series since his last show, Undeclared, was cancelled in 2003.
Leslie Arfin who is currently a writer for Brooklyn Nine Nine is rumored to be joining the project. She previously worked with Apatow on the HBO original series Girls, for which he writes and produces.
Judd Apatow was born into a Jewish family in Flushing, Queens in 1967 and is the grandson of music producer Bob Shad. He got his start in comedy while attending Syosset High School in New York where Apatow hosted a program which he created called Comedy Club on the school’s 10-watt radio station WKWZ. Apatow said that he came up with the idea for the show because it gave him an excuse to contact his favorite comedians, such as Howard Stern, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright and Garry Shandling, whom he would call up out of the blue for interviews.
When he was 17 and still in high school, Apatow began performing standup comedy in clubs. He moved to Los Angeles as soon as he graduated and turned 18.
His first major project was as a writer and executive producer on the Emmy winning The Ben Stiller Show in 1992, when he was only 25. From there he went on to the long running HBO hit comedy series, Garry Shandling’s The Larry Sanders Show, where he first had the opportunity to direct in 1998.
Currently Apatow is in production on the film Trainwreck, which he is directing. It stars Daniel Radcliffe and Oscar winners Tilda Swinton and Marisa Tomei. The movie was written by Amy Schumer who has a small role in the picture.
