Whether or not The Martian gets a mention for Best Adapted Screenplay when the Academy Award nominations are announced tomorrow morning, its screenwriter, Drew Goddard, is having a pretty good week. A few days ago, the the feel-good sci-fi film was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy, and today NBC has announced that Goddard will be directing the first episode of its upcoming straight-to-series sitcom, The Good Place. While he’s had plenty of experience in television—having created Daredevil for Netflix and written on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Lost, among other shows—this will be Goddard’s TV directorial debut. (He previously helmed the horror-comedy cult favorite The Cabin In The Woods, which he co-wrote with Joss Whedon.)
As we reported yesterday, The Good Place is the newest comedy series from Michael Schur (Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and will feature Kristen Bell as a New Jersey woman who is “struggling with what it means to be good,” as well as Ted Danson as a guy who’s apparently trying to help her stay morally upright. The show does not appear to feature stylized martial arts, otherworldly monsters, or interplanetary travel, so it will be somewhat of a departure for Goddard—although if anyone can find a way to work those things into a network sitcom, he can.