George Lopez sitcom planned on FX
Host George Lopez speaks onstage at the ALMA Awards in Pasadena, Calif. (Sept. 16, 2012) Credit: AP
George Lopez, who was pushed out of TBS' late-night lineup a couple of years ago after Conan O'Brien got his time slot, has landed at FX, where he'll star in a sitcom called "Saint George." It's Lopez's first starring role in a sitcom since his ABC series "George Lopez," which ended in 2007.
This time, Lopez is playing a successful engineer. Naturally, he has a demanding ex-wife and an overbearing mother. He also has an 11-year-old son and an uncle, who were described as neither demanding nor overbearing in last week's announcement.
The "Saint" part of the show's name stems from his character's having a new role as a philanthropist; he likes "giving back" by teaching history weekly at a night school.
The show was created by producing partners Matt Williams and David McFadzean, whose credits include "A Different World," "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement." And like FX's Charlie Sheen sitcom "Anger Management," Lopez's new comedy comes from Lionsgate and Debmar-Mercury -- the latter being the outfit that gave the world the 10/90 TV series model. It works like this: A network agrees to air 10 episodes of a new series; if those 10 episodes reach an agreed-upon ratings threshold, it triggers an automatic pickup of 90 more episodes. That gets the producers to the magic 100 episodes needed for syndication in a fraction of the time it takes under the traditional TV network model, in which roughly 13 to 24 episodes are ordered per season.
The new show will reflect Lopez's "no-holds-barred comedic take on the tensions surrounding race, class, sex and family life in Los Angeles through the eyes of a man straddling two separate cultures," Lionsgate Television's president, Kevin Beggs, said.
Lopez's TBS late-night show, "Lopez Tonight," debuted on the cable net in November 2009. When TBS signed the recently booted "Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien, Lopez's show got pushed to a later time slot. Lopez said at the time that he supported the move. But his ratings took a hit, and his show was pulled in the summer of '11.
Lopez is scheduled to perform at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury on May 4.
