EXCLUSIVE: Picked as much as sequence only a day after the twentieth 12 months anniversary of the Entourage premiere, NBC’s Fits: L.A. shares much more in widespread with the HBO showbiz comedy than a Los Angeles setting. Additionally they each characteristic a principal character impressed by — and named after — a high Hollywood agent.
Entourage‘s uber agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) being modeled after Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel is nicely established and a part of TV lore. Nevertheless it’s little identified that the central character of Fits: L.A., Ted Black, performed by Arrow alum Stephen Amell, was impressed by outstanding CAA agent and former ICM Companions managing director Ted Chervin — and the undertaking’s authentic incarnation was even titled Ted.
“Ted Black is Ted Chervin,” says Literate’s Dennis Kim, Fits and Fits: L.A. creator Aaron Korsh‘s former agent and present supervisor.
Fits: L.A.‘s official logline hints on the lead’s origins: The sequence facilities on Ted Black (Amell), a former federal prosecutor from New York who has reinvented himself by representing probably the most highly effective shoppers in Los Angeles.
Born and raised in Bronxville, N.Y. Chervin grew to become a federal prosecutor in New York after graduating from Harvard Legislation, pursuing mobsters and different organized crime kingpins, together with the top of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel. Then, at age 29, he stop his job and moved to Los Angeles to attempt to make it as a Hollywood expertise agent. He began with an entry-level job at boutique lit company Broder, Kurland, Webb, the place he went on to turn into a reputation companion earlier than its merger with ICM.
“I principally traded my Justice Division badge to attempt to turn into a real-life Ari Gold and enact my very own real-life Entourage,” Chervin mentioned throughout a TED Speak about his profession pivot seven years in the past.
Zach Braff as J.D., Donald Faison as Turk in ‘Scrubs’
Photograph by Chris Haston/Disney Normal Leisure Content material through Getty Photos
This isn’t the primary time a part of Chervin’s life has impressed part of a present: the characters J.D. (Zach Braff) and Turk (Donald Faison) on shopper Invoice Lawrence’s comedy Scrubs, who’re former faculty roommates, had been primarily based on Lawrence and Chervin’s faculty roommate, respectively.
Korsh has been fascinated by Chervin’s story since first listening to it at a dinner the 2 had after Korsh signed with the then-ICM agent on the top of Fits‘ success on USA Community in early 2015, after his longtime agent Kim had switched to administration.
Kim had helped Korsh promote Fits, which, paradoxically, was impressed by Entourage. Like Chervin, Korsh had modified careers and labored as an funding banker earlier than pursuing writing. Reflecting on his expertise, he determined to jot down an Entourage-style comedy set on Wall Avenue with a personality modeled after his boss.
Korsh’s spec script ended up being hourlong, and, whereas it drew curiosity from USA, the community brass didn’t really feel the world of finance would have a large enchantment and requested for the setting to be modified to a legislation agency. Korsh obliged, and Fits was born.
Because the authorized drama ended after 9 seasons, Korsh got down to write one other spec impressed by real-life experiences and other people he is aware of, and, nonetheless taken by Chervin’s story, he wrote Ted, which centered on a person named Ted who adopted Chervin’s profession trajectory of a former New York prosecutor coming to Hollywood to work as an agent. (Within the fictionalized model, the prosecutor is attempting to flee from the mob when he strikes to LA.)
USA brass felt the concept was too showbiz-focused and handed. The script, whose title was modified to Hindsight, was arrange at eOne Leisure — then owned by Hasbro — underneath President of International TV Michael Lombardo the place Korsh additionally signed an total deal. I hear there was an effort by the studio to steer the premise away from its darkish, extremely serialized nature and showbiz angle nearer to the lighter, procedural fashion that made Fits so profitable however it didn’t go far sufficient and the undertaking didn’t promote.
The script then discovered its solution to NBCUniversal the place, in one other ironic twist, Alex Sepiol, the USA govt who oversaw the event of Fits and is now a senior scripted govt throughout NBCU’s linear networks and Peacock, had suggestions for Korsh that felt like déjà vu: executives preferred the characters however felt the Hollywood illustration enterprise was too slim and requested him whether or not he would contemplate turning the expertise company right into a legislation agency.
For a second time, Korsh obliged however, after sitting at NBC for a 12 months and a half, the reworked script finally acquired a cross and reverted again to him.
Following the sudden, huge success of Fits on Netflix final summer time, NBCUniversal approached Korsh about doing a brand new sequence. I hear the corporate’s President of Scripted Content material Lisa Katz learn the Hindsight script, preferred it and requested whether or not they may use the Fits moniker within the title. Korsh was not concerned about revisiting the unique sequence and its characters, sources mentioned, however he was open to constructing a Fits universe within the mildew of Yellowstone with new tales and new characters.
NBCU was on board with that and Hindsight, finally renamed Fits: L.A., obtained a pilot order, casting Amell because the lead character Ted Black who at that time, following the undertaking’s advanced evolution, was solely loosely primarily based on Chervin.
“For the final a number of years, the man that created Fits had a derivative present that he was attempting to promote all over the place on the town,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos mentioned final December. “All people handed, together with us, and together with [NBCUniversal], and now they’re making it.”
Final month, Fits: L.A. was picked as much as sequence. Chervin, who has been repeatedly urged to show his story right into a ebook or a script, has no involvement or monetary participation within the undertaking, although his company CAA represents David Bartis and Doug Liman’s Hypnotic, producer of each Fits and Fits: L.A., which has been concerned within the offshoot since its early levels.
Chernin additionally doesn’t characterize Korsh anymore. After the bruising 2019-20 standoff between the WGA and the key expertise companies over packaging, Chervin solely re-signed a handful of his longtime TV writer-director shoppers, together with Scrubs creator and Ted Lasso co-creator Lawrence, as he shifted his focus to sports activities as ICM Stellar Sports activities chairman.
However Chervin and Korsh have remained pleasant and when the information of the sequence pickup broke, Chervin texted his former shopper and Kim with “Congrats on the sequence pickup kind the true Ted,” adopted by a smiley-face emoji, to which Korsh responded with “The OG Ted,” and Kim known as him a “legend.”
