According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has greenlit Brothers In Atlanta, a comedy series penned by Diallo Riddle and Bashir Salahuddin and produced by Lorne Michaels. It’s been a long journey for Riddle and Salahuddin, two friends and writing partners who have struggled to make a series about two friends struggling to make it in Atlanta.
In 2013, HBO ordered a Brothers In Atlanta pilot about two local reporters trying to hit the big time. HBO didn’t like the pilot enough to go to series, but Riddle and Salahuddin were offered the chance to remake the concept into something that HBO would like. So Riddle and Salahuddin killed off the news angle, turning the reporters into career-challenged musicians. Thus, a new Brothers In Atlanta pilot was was born, with Maya Rudolph and Jaden Smith rounding out the cast.
Instead of working news beats and providing backed-up sources, Riddle and Salahuddin will now drop sick beats and provide backup vocals, respectively. Riddle is playing Langston, a floundering DJ who is distracted by get-rich-quick schemes. Salahuddin plays Moose, a backup singer who would like to reach center stage, but manages to say all the wrong things. Moose is also stymied by his boss, Shirle, a past-her-prime R&B diva played by Rudolph. And because every great comedy must have a wacky neighbor, Langston will have to deal with Smith as Curtis, a teen with “unpredictable interests” and a “mysterious income,” possibly with connections to Bel Air royalty.
Brothers In Atlanta will now vie to make it alongside two other recently announced HBO comedies. Adapted from the Vimeo series, High Maintenance operates on the premise that house-calling pot dealers are the cement holding our lives together, and not paranoid weirdos we tolerate only long enough to get our kush. And Sarah Jessica Parker will test the Family Stone theory that people love seeing bad things happen to Sarah Jessica Parker in Divorce.