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Halifax - Vince Vaughn's Wild West Picture Show Productions is backing a Canadian comedy vehicle for stand-up comedian Angelo Tsarouchas. The Canadian Greek comic will topline The Angelo Show, a multi-cam comedy inspired by Tsarouchas. The project is currently in development with Canadian broadcaster CTV. Vaughn, Howard Busgang and Tom Nursall are executive producing The Angelo Show, which has yet to be picked up as a pilot. Photos: Custom-Tailored Hollywood: Comedy Director Paul Feig and Facebook's Matt Jacobson Tsarouchas played a taxi driver on Sullivan & Son, Vaughn's TBS comedy from Wild West Picture Show Productions and Warner

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NBC has picked up 12-episode series single-camera comedy Working The Engels, starring Sctv alumna Andrea Martin. NBC will co-produce the series with Core Media/Noreen Halpern’s Halfire-core Entertainment, which has a 3-for-1 drama series deal at NBC, and Canada’s Shaw Media. American networks have teamed with Canadian broadcasters on comedy projects before — most recently last season when ABC partnered with Shaw to co-produce a half-hour by Bob Martin — but this is the first time such a collaboration has gone to series. Working The Engles, created and written by Katie Ford and Jane Ford, centers on a family who must band together to keep their heads above water when their father and breadwinner passes away, leaving them a mountain of debt. The Engels must all go to work running Dad’s storefront law firm, with one minor problem — daughter Jenna is the only one who is qualified to practice law.

Halfire-Core Entertainment, the joint production and financing venture between TV producer Noreen Halpern‘s Halfire Entertainment and Core Media Group led by Marc Graboff, has added two to its exec ranks. Stephanie Fontana, niece to Borgias and Oz creator Tom Fontana, will serve as Director of Development and Production based in Halfire-core’s La outpost. The 18-year TV development and production vet’s credits include the CW’s Reaper, ABC’s Desperate Housewives, and HBO’s Oz. Also joining the company is Toronto-based Ben Murray, who will serve as Director of Business Development after runs as director of biz affairs and development at Serendipity Point Films and as a programmer for the Toronto Film Festival. The pair will help develop Halfire-core’s upcoming slate including half-hour comedy Working The Engels written and exec produced by Katie and Jane Ford and exec produced by Howard Busgang, Tom Nursall and Halpern. Fontana...

When there’s two rival Beauty and the Beast projects, you gotta think a trend is forming. Following the success of ABC’s top-rated new drama Once Upon a Time (and to a lesser extent, NBC’s Grimm), broadcast-network pilot season seems to have a greater than usual number of projects with fantasy or supernatural elements — along with a ton of shows about federal agents, everyday cops, doctors, conspiracies, and cults. The magical-realism trend is partly a continuation from last year’s pilot season. This time around, however, there seems to be fewer head-turning TV reboots ideas in the mix...

Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden is trying her hand at something new. The actress has landed the lead role in NBC's latest comedy pilot, "Isabel."

Harden will play Francis, the matriarch of a "normal middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter (Sophia Mitri Schloss from 'Grimm') who has magical qualities," according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Isabel" will have Howard Busgang ("The Closer") and Tom Nursall ("Single White Spenny") as its showrunners.

This is the third time in the past four years that Harden has signed on for a TV pilot. Last year, she did ABC's sitcom "Smothered," and in 2008, she did CBS' "The Tower." But neither made it to air.

Could the magic "Isabel" prove that third time's the charm?

Harden is quite the accomplished actress of film, stage and television. Besides her Academy Award for "Pollock," she received a Tony Award for "God of Carnage,...

Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden is trying her hand at something new. The actress has landed the lead role in NBC's latest comedy pilot, "Isabel."

Harden will play Francis, the matriarch of a "normal middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter (Sophia Mitri Schloss from 'Grimm') who has magical qualities," according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Isabel" will have Howard Busgang ("The Closer") and Tom Nursall ("Single White Spenny") as its showrunners.

This is the third time in the past four years that Harden has signed on for a TV pilot. Last year, she did ABC's sitcom "Smothered," and in 2008, she did CBS' "The Tower." But neither made it to air.

Could the magic "Isabel" prove that third time's the charm?

Harden is quite the accomplished actress of film, stage and television. Besides her Academy Award for "Pollock," she received a Tony Award for "God of Carnage,...

Film and TV actress Marcia Gay Harden has landed a lead role in an NBC comedy pilot.

The Damages and Mystic River star was cast in Isabel, about a “normal middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter (Sophia Mitri Schloss from Grimm) who has magical qualities.” Harden plays the family matriarch.

Isabel is one of five pilots ordered by NBC in recent months, with more to come in the next couple weeks. Howard Busgang (The Closer) and Tom Nursall (Single White Spenny) are the showrunners.

Exclusive: Young actress Sophia Schloss has landed the title role in NBC’s single-camera comedy pilot Isabel. Inspired by the French-Canadian series Le Monde De Charlotte, Isabel centers on an otherwise normal, angry middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter (Schloss) who has magical qualities. Schloss has experience acting in an NBC pilot with magical elements — she guest starred in the pilot for the network’s freshman drama series Grimm. Isabel was written by Howard Busgang and Tom Nursall, with Todd Holland set to direct. Aaron Kaplan, Jocelyn Deschenes, Busgang and Nursall, Holland and Karey Burke are executive producing.

Exclusive: Emmy winner Todd Holland has been tapped to direct NBC’s single-camera comedy Isabel. The project, a family comedy with a magical twist, was written on spec by Howard Busgang and Tom Nursall. Inspired by the French-Canadian series Le Monde De Charlotte, it centers on an otherwise normal angry middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter who has magical qualities. In addition to directing, Holland, who is based at Universal TV with producing partner Karey Burke, will also serve as an executive producer on the pilot alongside Aaron Kaplan, French-Canadian TV producer Jocelyn Deschenes, Busgang and Nursall. Holland’s directing work on another single-camera family comedy, Fox’s Malcolm In the Middle, earned him one of his 3 Emmy awards (the other 2 were for episodes of Malcolm and The Larry Sanders Show). He most recently directed the pilot for NBC’s comedy series Free Agents.

NBC has handed out a pilot order to Isabel, a single-camera family comedy with a twist from producer Aaron Kaplan. The network bought the project on spec, which was written by Howard Busgang and Tom Nursall. The two developed the comedy with Kaplan and French-Canadian TV producer Jocelyn Deschenes through their Kapital Entertainment and Sphere Media, respectively. Inspired by the French-Canadian series Le Monde De Charlotte, Isabel centers on an otherwise normal angry middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter who has magical qualities. Busgang, Nursall, Kaplan and Deschenes are expected to executive produce. Casting is starting right away, with the pilot slated to shoot in Los Angeles. Canadian-born Busgang and Nursall are Los Angeles-based but have spent the last few years working primarily in Canada as creators/writers/executive producers. This marks the 10th pilot order for 28-month-old Kapital Entertainment. This season...

Toronto -- NBC Universal has joined with Canwest Global Communications Corp. to co-produce the Canadian medical procedural "Combat Hospital" from indie producer Sienna Films for Global Television.

The drama about a military field hospital in Afghanistan manned by doctors and nurses from around the world and serving injured coalition troops and Afghan civilians is part of an expanding homegrown scripted slate from Canwest Global that includes an eight-episode order for "Single White Spenny" from Breakthrough Films & Television for its Showcase cable channel.

"Combat Hospital" is executive produced by Simon Vaughan of Lookout Films. Vaughan helped finance the CBS/CTV drama "Flashpoint" while with Alchemy TV.

The medical drama is set for delivery in November 2010.

Canwest Global and NBC Universal earlier co-produced the Howie Mandel-starring hidden camera reality series "Howie Does It."

The Canadian broadcaster is also a keen buyer of U.S. series from NBC Universal Domestic Television for its Canadian schedule.

TORONTO -- The Just for Laughs comedy festival and Canadian producer Muse Entertainment on Monday jumped into the scripted TV and movie comedy business together.

The Montreal-based producing partnership, Just for Laughs Muse Comedy Prods., will kick off with "O'Cannabis", a feature comedy set in an imagined Canada where marijuana is legal and hookahs compete with hockey for the attention of Canadians.

Montreal-based Muse, a veteran drama producer, earlier produced the mockumentary "The Tournament" for Just for Laughs and series creator Howard Busgang. The hockey-themed show aired for two seasons on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in Canada and OLN in the U.S.

Thomas Schlamme ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip") is developing the series format for Warner Bros. Television, while Sue Vertue ("Men Behaving Badly") is doing the same for the BBC in the U.K.

Just for Laughs COO Bruce Hills said it makes sense for his festival, a veteran producer of live and variety TV programming, to cement its partnership with Muse and its expertise in scripted fare.