(Again)

The Americans are to have a second bash at remaking hit BBC One comedy Outumbered.

Executives at the Fox network have ordered a pilot of the semi-improvised family sitcom – two-and-a-half years after an earlier trial episode failed to be converted into a series.

Shooting on the new version will start in the next few months – outside of the US networks’ usual pilot season. Fox hopes this means it will have a greater choice of talent from which to choose.

The pilot is being made in association with Hat Trick Productions, which makes the BBC series, with boss Jimmy Mulville one of the executive producers.

It is being written by Barbara Wallace and Thomas R. Wolfe, a relatively unknown writing team with just two obscure credits in the past decade: a TV movie called Two Families and the pilot of a sitcom called State Of Romance, which was not picked up.

Fox picked up a previous pilot of Outnumbered in early 2008, but it never made it to series.

Published: 13 Sep 2010