Actress, writer, and director Lake Bell is teaming up with “New Girl” creator Liz Meriwether for a comedy series. According to Deadline, Fox has given a pilot production commitment to “Bless This Mess,” a single-camera project about newlyweds who leave New York City to pursue a more down-to-earth life in Nebraska. Bell will star as one half of the central couple and serve as director. She and Meriwether will write the series. Joining them as executive producers is “New Girl” EP Katherine Pope.
Bell and Meriwether previously worked together when Bell guest starred on a Season 1 episode of “New Girl.”
“I Do… Until I Don’t,” writer-director Bell’s exploration about monogamy and marriage, opened in September. She previously helmed, penned, and toplined the 2013 feminist comedy “In a World…” Episodes of “Casual” and “Childrens Hospital” are among Bell’s other directorial credits and she’s appeared onscreen in projects like Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s “Home Again” and “Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later.”
Besides creating, writing, and producing the Zooey Deschanel-led “New Girl,” Meriwether has written the 2011 rom-com “No Strings Attached,” an episode of “Childrens Hospital,” and a short for Funny or Die. Last year Meriwether’s comedy “Thin Ice” received a pilot production commitment, but Fox ultimately passed on the Antarctica-set project.
“New Girl” will return for its seventh and final season in 2018.
