Peacock at heaven's gate
Kutcher laffer sets rebirth at 20th TV
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Former "That '70s Show" scribe Eric Gililland is set to write and exec produce the pilot. Kutcher will exec produce with Katalyst partners Jason Goldberg and Karey Burke.
After winning a bidding war with Fox, Peacock has attached a substantial penalty to its script commitment for the multicamera laffer, which is not designed to be a starring vehicle for Kutcher.
"It's a workplace comedy revolving around five people who continually die and fail to get into heaven, thus sending them back to Earth for another go," Goldberg explained in an interview with Daily Variety. "The message is, when you're down here, you're here to learn a lesson. And if you don't get it right, they keep sending you back until hopefully you do."
Tentative title refers to St. Peter, who will greet the five main characters each time they're sent back upstairs.
Quintet will be reincarnated every couple of episodes but will have no memory of their past lives -- save, perhaps, for a sense of deja vu. And while their workplace settings will change, the core essence of the characters -- and their relationships with each other -- will remain constant.
"Ashton, as he has proven on some of his unscripted shows, has a really fun, commercial instinct," NBC development chief Ghen Maynard said in an interview Friday. "He and Eric came up with a concept I haven't heard before. It allows us to go in a lot of different directions."
One twist that speaks to the show's creative origins: In "For Pete's Sake," celebrities automatically get into heaven. "That's how you know Ashton really did create this," Goldberg joked.
Katalyst, repped by Endeavor, has been having a busy development season on the scripted front. Company recently snagged a pilot commitment from Fox for laffer "30-Year-Old Grandpa" (Daily Variety, Oct. 18) and has other projects in the works at both Fox and ABC.
Gililland worked with Kutcher on the first season of "That '70s Show" in 1998 and also created the laffer "That's Life." His other credits include "Roseanne," "Who's the Boss?" and "The Wonder Years."
