Much like that string of Friends episodes that left him with a pierced ear and yet another divorce, David Schwimmer has gone from finding comfort with a new English love (that is, sitcom) to once again heeding the siren’s call of an American production, whose names he might have confused at an inopportune time had the latter not recently changed its title. Deadline reports that Schwimmer has just signed on to lead the AMC drama, Feed The Beast, along with Cloud Atlas’ Jim Sturgess. The series comes from Clyde Phillips (Dexter, Nurse Jackie) and was originally known simply as Broke; there’s no indication why the name was changed, but the switch has robbed Schwimmer of a chance to scream “WE WERE ON (A) BROKE” at the Emmys somewhere down the line.
We learned last year that AMC was going for Broke, an adaptation of the Danish series Bankerot that it ordered straight to series. The newly-dubbed Feed The Beast will see Schwimmer and Sturgess play Tommy and Dion, respectively, a pair of friends who manage to find time to “push each other, welcome love into their lives and overcome their demons” all in the midst of making their restaurant-owning dreams come true. Tommy and Dion are probably the “brilliant chef in trouble with the Mob and the law” and “the best sommelier in the city who is the widowed father of a teenage son” who were previously alluded to and who run afoul of the local mobster played by Mad Men’s Michael Gladis.