Ray Romano pens new TV show to star in
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Hot Momma
Ray Romano is working on a return back to TV. Romano has teamed up with “Everybody Loves Raymond” scribe-producer Mike Royce to create a comedic one-hour drama called “Men of a Certain Age,” in which Romano will also star. And in a rare move, tv station TNT is ready to go straight to pilot on the script, which was written outside the normal development process.
The new show will revolve around three men in their 40s, friends since college, who now find themselves going through midlife crises of various sorts. The concept is described as akin to the movie “Sideways” in tone.
Romano will play Joe, a neurotic divorced dad who hoped to become a pro golfer but now owns a party store. His two best friends are a stressed-out car salesman-dad and an aspiring actor.
Romano and Royce wrote and created “Men” together and both will serve as exec producers. Romano had been developing the project for HBO but they declined to move forward. And so discussions began discussing moving it to TNT. They had to wait though for the WGA strike to end. Now TNT is producing the pilot itself, with no studio currently attached.
Romano said: “Mike and I have always had success writing what we know.” “What we know now is that we’re middle-aged, neurotic and fat.”
Michael Wright, who’s in charge of content creation for the Turner networks, said the series is about “the highs and lows of being a guy in the modern era.
“It’s about three best friends, each hoping to fulfill his dreams before the clock starts running out,” he added. “It’s an honest, emotional, funny and very personal take on the subject.”
“I was just so impressed with what Ray and Mike wrote. It’s so authentic … and the humor is so well-observed.’ ‘Search for a director and supporting cast will begin immediately. Assuming a series order, Wright said “Men” is unlikely to debut before early 2009 and could hold until summer of next year.
The pilot is very likely to be greenlit to series and it will be Romano’s first regular series gig since “Raymond” left the air in May 2005. Not much of a vacation! Royce, who joined “Raymond” in season two and rose to exec producer, was showrunner on HBO’s “Lucky Louie” as part of his deal with the cabler.
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