While the final seasons of ABC’s Black-ish and NBC’s This Is Us were largely snubbed, the TV Academy didn’t entirely forget about broadcast television. ABC’s freshman comedy Abbott Elementary broke through with seven Emmy nominations Tuesday, including a history-making three for creator, star and showrunner Quinta Brunson.
Brunson became the first Black woman to score three comedy Emmy nominations as her Warner Bros. Television-produced series also collected mentions for outstanding comedy, writing for a comedy (for Brunson) and for co-stars Tyler James Williams, Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph as well as for casting.
“This show arrived at a time where it struck a chord with teachers as everyday heroes, on the heels of 2020 when so many of us parents were homeschooling our kids and understanding what it is that teachers do every single day. The timing of Abbott Elementary caused the show to resonate in even deeper ways than it might have,” said Channing Dungey, who oversees Warner Bros. Television.
For the executive, the nominations haul for Abbott proved particularly exciting as the roots of the comedy date back to a busted pilot for The CW in 2018 called The End of the World as We Know It. That’s when Brunson — a BuzzFeed star at the time — first went into business with Warners, the studio behind the pilot. It’s also when Brunson first met Abbott exec producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, as the duo penned the script for End of the World, a drama about a prison spaceship carrying the universe’s most deadly aliens that crashes in Southern California. Brunson was to have played one of the unlikely women who were tasked with tracking down the escaped criminals.
Brunson, who was already in the writers room prepping season two of Abbott by mid-morning Tuesday, re-teamed with Halpern and Schumacker for what would become the breakout ABC comedy after it was originally developed as an animated series.
“In a world where people tend to discount broadcast and not give it its due, Abbott Elementary is a real example of the fact that great stories are great stories, regardless of the platform,” Dungey said. “It’s so meaningful.”
Dungey had other reasons to celebrate Tuesday as Warner Bros. TV, the studio she took over from Peter Roth in late 2020, collected 44 total Emmy nominations. The tally also includes another 20 noms for Apple’s Ted Lasso, which repeated its sum from season one. The defending best comedy series winner — which will take on Abbott Elementary in the category this year — was designed as a three-season run. Series star and Emmy winner/2022 nominee Jason Sudeikis has been vocal about the three-season plan and fellow Emmy winner and 2022 nominee Brett Goldstein recently confirmed that the upcoming season of the series is being written as its last. Dungey, however, isn’t so quick to confirm that the sun is setting on the studio’s hit show.
“The way they pitched out the season, it would work very well should [season three] be the end,” she told THR. “Audiences will be satisfied with how they resolve the end of the season. But there is still an opportunity and path for us to do more. We will see how everything comes together; there are a lot of moving pieces here and there’s a continued enthusiasm to keep telling these stories.”
Asked specifically if Ted Lasso can exist without Sudeikis’ titular character, Dungey noted that there have been conversations about the future of the show beyond season three with both the actor/co-creator/writer/exec producer and Bill Lawrence, the co-creator and showrunner on the series. “I can’t speculate on that,” she said. “I don’t know the broader story for season four so that’s hard to say.”
And like every popular show, there’s always an opportunity to expand the franchise with spinoffs. “There are many different things that are possible though nothing is definitive at this point.”
Still, Dungey was notably excited about the larger showing for Warner Bros. Discovery, which led all conglomerates with a combined 155 nominations. That bested last year’s leader, Disney. “It’s a great day when I look across the board at so many of the shows that we contributed to getting recognition,” she said. “A lot of different shows were able to get nominations — even if they didn’t get as many expected. I was hoping for a limited series nomination for Maid but I’m thrilled Margaret Qualley was singled out.”
In non-Emmys news, Dungey also confirmed that J.J. Abrams’ Demimonde is on pause after HBO shockingly passed on the original series created by the Bad Robot boss. Instead, the production company that is based at Warners with a $250 million overall deal is focused on Constantine, Duster, Speed Racer and a couple of projects Abrams has set up at Netflix. “J.J. wants to take a beat and think about what’s next for Demimonde versus rushing to set it up right away,” Dungey said.
Source: Hollywood
