NBC developing comedy from Community and Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo

By Sam Barsanti | February 4, 2015 | 3:48am

Aux Features TV

Here’s an instance where selectively citing someone’s prior work can severely impact how exciting a new project sounds: NBC has just picked up a buddy comedy pilot from writer Aseem Batra and producers/directors Joe and Anthony Russo. But who are these people? Well, The Hollywood Reporter, in its writeup, chooses to highlight the fact that the three of them worked on the monkey doctor series Animal Practice. That doesn’t instill much confidence, and we haven’t even mentioned that Batra was a writer/producer/actor on The Cleveland Show.

Well, we’re going to ignore that dark chapter. Instead, we’ll acknowledge that Batra used to be a writer for Scrubs, and the Russo brothers directed a bunch of episodes of Community and a little film called Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Gives this news a whole different vibe, doesn’t it? Anyway, THR describes the show they’re all working on as “a politically incorrect comedy” about two friends “whose relationship is upended” when one of them starts dating a supposedly “perfect” woman. That might not sound revolutionary, but it’s from a Scrubs writer and the guys behind The Winter Soldier!