Kat Dennings to Star With Tim Allen in New ABC Comedy Pilot Shifting Gears
The potential new ABC series hails from a former showrunner and executive producer of The Simpsons.
Kat Dennings is shifting gears back to network television. The Two Broke Girls star has joined ABC comedy pilot Shifting Gears, a new multi-cam sitcom marking Tim Allen's next vehicle at the network following long runs on Home Improvement and Last Man Standing. Dennings will play Allen's newly-divorced daughter who returns home with two teenagers in tow, allowing the headstrong widower and his estranged daughter to take a look under the hood of their strained relationship. Deadline first reported news of Dennings' casting.
The official logline for the potential series: "Matt (Allen) is the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop. When Matt's estranged daughter (Dennings) and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins." Dennings' character Riley is described as "Matt's daughter who butted heads with her father growing up and left to marry the boyfriend he hated. Now divorced, Riley's forced to move back home with two kids, hoping she and her dad can make it work this time."
"I am very excited," Allen recently told Entertainment Tonight of his new sitcom. "You know, I tried really hard with Home Improvement, and then Last Man Standing. Maybe three's a charm! Maybe I can finally make a statement with this."
"It was a big event for me, 'cause I really loved Home Improvement, [so] to do Last Man Standing was a big push, and then I love that family so much," Allen explained. "But then ABC said, 'If you come up with an idea,' and I said, 'If I did it, it would be this.' And we came up with this idea, and we're getting there."
Allen added he's "very geeked" about Shifting Gears.
Shifting Gears comes from Duncanville co-creators Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Scully. A former executive producer and showrunner of animated sitcom The Simpsons, Mike Scully's television credits include episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, Parks and Recreation, The Carmichael Show, and the short-lived Napoleon Dynamite animated series.
The Scullys serve as executive producers with Allen; Dennings also joins the pilot as a producer. Marty Adelstein (Last Man Standing), Richard Baker (The Santa Clauses), Rick Messina (The Santa Clause 2), and Becky Clements (Netflix's One Piece) are executive producing for Disney's 20th Television.