The CW, Roku, Stan & Jeff Wachtel Team For Comedic Procedural ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop’ Starring Leighton Meester

Jesse Whittock
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: The CW, Roku and Australia’s Stan are working up Good Cop/Bad Cop, a comedic crime procedural with Jeff Wachtel’s Future Shack Entertainment and Jungle Entertainment.

Good Cop/Bad Cop stars Gossip Girls alumna Leighton Meester in her return to the CW, Clancy Brown (Dexter: New Blood) and Australian actor Luke Cook (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). The series comes from writer John Quaintance (Will & Grace) and marks the latest international co-production for Stan, the CW and Roku, all of which have identified the model as core to their strategies.

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Cook and Meester play a brother-sister detective team in a small Pacific Northwest police force who must contend with colourful residents, a serious lack of resources, their very complicated dynamic with each other and their police chief, Big Hank (Clancy Brown), who happens to be their father.

Production on the original series begins soon in Queensland, Australia, with Jungle Entertainment and Future Shack Entertainment — the company former NBCUniversal International Studios President Wachtel formed in 2022 — attached as co-producers. Wachtel will be an executive producer on the series, which is a “blue sky procedural” in the vein of the series he shepherded as President of USA Network, including Suits and Psych.

Phil Lloyd, who is behind Stan’s Ben Feldman comedy Population 11, is co-executive producer, with that series’ director Trent O’Donnell is setting up the series alongside Natalie Bailey (Joe vs. Carol), Gracie Otto (Bump) and Corrie Chen (Bad Behaviour). Stan’s Cailah Scobie and Amanda Duthie also executive produce and the Queensland Government through Screen Queensland’s Production Attraction Strategy. ITV Studios has International sales rights.

For the CW, the series is its latest international co-production bet, coming after it boarded the likes of Canadian cop drama Wild Cards and the upcoming UK series Joan. Wild Cards has been a breakout for the network. Coming off series high ratings last week, it ranks as the CW’s #1 series this season in Live+7 total viewers (840,000).

“It is really exciting to collaborate with Roku and Stan on this great new series starring Leighton Meester, who we are honored to welcome home to The CW, where she launched her career and made Gossip Girl, one of the network’s most iconic and successful dramas of all time,” said Brad Schwartz, ​President of Entertainment at The CW. “Writer John Quaintance and executive producer Jeff Wachtel have created a fun and funny drama full of clever storytelling and irresistible characters that we are confident will resonate with audiences worldwide. With Jeff’s track record of launching shows like Suits, Dawson’s Creek, and Psych, we are thrilled for him to bring his hitmaking magic to The CW.”

“Backed by the all-star creative team of John Quaintance and Jeff Wachtel and featuring dynamic leads Leighton Meester, Luke Cook and Clancy Brown at the helm, Good Cop/Bad Cop is the type of series that will instantly draw viewers in,” said Brian Tannenbaum, Head of Originals, Roku Media. “The Roku Channel’s industry-leading scale and reach enables us to bring great stories directly to U.S. households with an estimated 120 million people. We strive to bring our audiences bold and fresh original programming and can’t wait to introduce them to this amazing series.”

“Stan continues to be the Australian partner of choice for the international market and we are delighted to collaborate with global content leaders the CW and Roku to deliver more world-class original content for our audience,” ​Stan Chief Content Officer Cailah Scobie said. “Good Cop/Bad Cop is a highly anticipated addition to our Originals slate, and we look forward to working with Jeff Wachtel’s Future Shack, with the team at Jungle Entertainment and with Leighton Meester and Clancy Brown in the sunny state of Queensland.”

Meester is repped by UTA. Cook is repped by Artists First and Shanahan Management. Brown is repped by CAA and Pop Art Management.

Nellie Andreeva contributed to this report.

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