Fox Orders Will Forte Comedy ‘Last Man On Earth’ To Series For Midseason 2015
Fox has ordered to series the single-camera comedy Last Man On Earth, which is created by and will star Will Forte. Forte and The Lego Movie duo of Phil Lord & Chris Miller are executive producing with Seth Cohen, and Lord and Miller will direct the pilot episode. The project is part of Fox chairman Kevin Reilly’s plan to bypass pilot season, go straight to series and cast projects outside of the traditional January-April pilot cycle. Last Man On Earth will be produced off-cycle, filming in the summer for a 2014-2015 midseason bow. Fox originally bought the project in October in a bidding war with a pilot production commitment. At the time, Forte was not attached to star, only to write and executive produce. However, the lead was intended for him, and he now has an acting deal in place. Three months before the upfronts, Fox already has three comedy series ordered for next season, Last Man On Earth, Mulaney and Weird Loners, and two dramas, Hieroglyph and Backstrom, along with several other pilots that are on series track.
Written by Forte and produced by 20th TV and studio-based Lord Miller, Last Man On Earth centers a stranger (Forte) who becomes the last human on Earth. It marks a return to writing for Forte, who started off as a writer on the Late Show, 3rd Rock From The Sun and That ’70s Show before hitting it big on Saturday Night Live, where he was a cast member for a decade. He just worked with Miller and Lord voicing Abraham Lincoln in box office hit Lego Movie, and also voiced a character on the pair’s 2002 animated series Clone High. Forte, repped by UTA and Mosaic, is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his role in Nebraska and will next be seen in Life Of Crime and Squirrel To The Nuts.
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