CBS Studios is developing a new half-hour comedy set at ‘Area 51′, alongside James Wan’s Atomic Monster, from Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt (‘God Friended Me’, ‘Quantum Leap’, ‘La Brea’) and Laura Moran (‘The Neighborhood’).
As I’m sure most of you are aware, Area 51 is the highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. It has long been the subject of alien conspiracy theories and UFO folklore due to its secretive nature and events such as the “Roswell Incident”. The basic premise for the show is pretty straightforward – ‘Area 51’ follows the humans and Aliens that work together at the country’s most mysterious place.
The potential new show comes from Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt, who previously created ‘God Friended Me’ for CBS. They also developed and exec produced NBC’s ‘Quantum Leap’ reboot and were EPs/co-showrunners on NBC’s wonderfully bonkers sci-fi drama, ‘La Brea’. However, ‘Area 51’ is a bit of a departure for them, as it is a pure, half-hour, single-camera comedy – something they have not tried before. That is where Laura Moran comes in who is writer/producer on the hugely successful CBS comedy ‘The Neighborhood’, and has also written on Max’s brilliant animated series ‘Harley Quinn’.
‘Area 51’ is only in development at the moment, so it’s possible it won’t get picked up to series. CBS are certainly not short on shows, They have had success with half-hour single-camera comedy before with hits such as ‘Young Sheldon’, and the US version of ‘Ghosts’. However, single-camera is more expensive to produce than the more traditional multi-camera “sitcom” set-up (such as ‘The Neighborhood’), so we’ll have to see if they think this is worth the extra money.
‘Area 51’ is classed as “in development” so we’ll let you know if/when we hear more.
