LeBron James continues to score deals in Hollywood — this time with a nod to Cleveland.
James is scoring assist after assist with NBC, landing another scripted show with the network.
SpringHill Entertainment, which he founded with Maverick Carter, his friend since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, announced Thursday it has inked a deal for a project titled There Goes the Neighborhood.
The half-hour comedy series would follow the first white family to move into a “predominantly black, newly gentrifying neighborhood in Cleveland.”
The show’s executive producers would include James, Carter, Bill Lawrence (Scrubs), and Jeff Ingold, former head of comedy at NBC.
This is SpringHill’s second deal with NBC in as many weeks. The network also agreed to a development deal for a yet-to-be named drama about a sports medicine doctor who specializes in treating big-time sports athletes while confronting his own personal medical crisis. Well-known orthopedic sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews has signed on as a consultant.
Both shows are being produced in association with Warner Bros. Television, which is also partnering with James on a long-anticipated big screen reboot of the Michael Jordan film Space Jam.
It had been speculated that James would be joining Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Mark Wahlberg on the project. But Wahlberg appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week and said the picture circulating on the Internet of the pair working out, which fueled the Space Jam rumors, was off just a bit.
Wahlberg told Fallon he is talking about doing a movie with the Cavs superstar, but the film would be about an ordinary guy “who gets to one of those fantasy camps and me and LeBron have a situation.”
SpringHill’s first network prime-time game show, The Wall, is set to debut on NBC later this year. Hosted by Chris Hardwick, the show has “everyday people and families competing for life-altering amounts of money in a thrilling game of knowledge, camaraderie and a little luck.”
James is also executive producer on the Starz! television series Survivor’s Remorse, and SpringHill produces the new show Cleveland Hustles on CNBC that follows the efforts of some Northeast Ohio entrepreneurs looking to make it big.
“SpringHill Entertainment has come a long way in the last year and a half, and I’m proud of the creative, authentic and entertaining content we continue to create for all types of audiences,” said Carter in a statement. “From Survivor’s Remorse getting picked up for a fourth season, to the summer success of our aspirational Cleveland Hustles series, and with a lot of great upcoming projects in the works, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of SpringHill.”
Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547.