Dan Harmon’s Future May Reside at Fox.
image via gawker.com
It has not been long since the Community/Dan Harmon controversy hit the internet and fans of the show went nuts. Now there seems to be good news on the Dan Harmon front. Multiple sites are confirming that Harmon and Fox are very close to closing a deal for the writer to develop a pilot for the network.
Although currently not much information is available, it does sound like the project would be a multi-camera sitcom. This news surprised me quite a bit, mostly because it corresponds closely to a discussion I was intrigued by on a podcast I listened to recently. On the podcast, the discussion centered around how the networks should be finding great creators and giving them the ability to do whatever they want as a show—as long as it is shot in the multi-camera style. The reasoning for this is that multi-cam shows normally serve a wider audience and so it follows that they are more popular. On the other hand, you still have this great creator who will, hopefully, find creativity working in limitations of an onset filmed before a live studio audience setting.
This news might be the test case a theory like this one needs. Harmon’s Community was, in my (any many other’s) opinion an extremely creative project. It was also abysmally rated. Would a sitcom written by him maintain the creativity while broadening the audience? Maybe now we’ll find out.
If Harmon and Fox come to a deal on this project it would make him the third Greendale alum to make the move over to Fox after working on the show. Former co-showrunners Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan are working on the upcoming Ben & Kate (which has good buzz) and former co-executive producer Chris McKenna has joined Mindy Kaling‘s The Mindy Project.
Harmon is also working on the animated series Rick & Morty for Adult Swim.
