Joel and Ethan Coen Are Making a TV Comedy About a Private Investigator

Joel and Ethan Coen Are Making a TV Comedy About a Private Investigator:

Coen Brothers fans, prepare for paroxysms of excitement. Los. Bros. Awesome are making a TV show. But settle down just a bit, however, because they’re not going to be writing every episode, and at this point we’re not even certain that Joel or Ethan will direct an installment. But plans are afoot to create a show called HarveKarbo, which would be an idiosyncratic LA-based detective show.

Deadline describes the show like so:

[HarveKarbo] follows the title character — an ill-tempered LA private investigator whose cases frequently involve the depraved doings of the Hollywood elite — and his deadbeat friends in Los Angeles’ El Segundo.

Wait a minute… let’s look at those story elements again. LA private investigator…depraved doings… deadbeat friends… am I the only one getting an almost certainly too-hopeful The Big Lebowski vibe from that setup? I certainly don’t want to go too far out on a limb and assume the show will have that sort of vibe, but how can that not come to mind?

The Coens will exec produce the hourlong single-camera comedy for Fox, and they created it with Cedar Rapids and Wreck-It Ralph writer Phil Johnston, who will also exec produce with Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer (who produced Intolerable Cruelty) and Francie Calfo at Fox.

Johnston will be the principal writer, and likely showrunner. The project has a script commitment “with significant penalty” at Fox. In other words, the chances are better than most that this will move forward.

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