Actress Kathryn Hahn will be seen playing Joan Rivers in “The Comeback Girl,” a limited series.
It is in development at Showtime, produced by Warner Bros. Television, Atlas Entertainment and Berlanti Productions, reports variety.com.
In addition to starring as Rivers, Hahn will also executive produce “The Comeback Girl”, Greg Berlanti will direct and executive produce and Cosmo Carlson will write and executive produce.
Carlson, a two-time Black List screenwriter wrote “The Comeback Girl” as a spec script. With Atlas Entertainment’s Richard Suckle and Robert Amidon behind the project, Suckle and Carlson brought it to Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Productions, who signed on.
Rivers died at age 81 on September 4 several days after she’d stopped breathing during a routine endoscopy on her throat.
She had been a revolutionary figure in the world of stand-up comedy, especially as a woman and particularly during the 1960s, when her star began to rise in New York’s comedy scene.
She also began her run of appearances on “The Tonight Show” in the mid-1960s, which eventually led to her becoming Johnny Carson’s regular guest host on that show in the 1980s.
The two had a bitter falling out in 1986 after she went to the nascent Fox network for her own show, called “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers”. In doing so, Rivers became the first woman to host a late-night talk show but also Carson’s competition.
He said he hadn’t heard the news from her, which hurt him, and he banned her from “The Tonight Show”.
“The Comeback Girl” is primarily set in the aftermath of the cancellation of “The Late Show,” which coincided with Rivers’ husband (and “Late Show” producer) Edgar Rosenberg’s death by suicide.
Hahn was nominated for an Emmy for “WandaVision” and will soon be seen in Apple TV’s “The Shrink Next Door”. She recently completed filming on Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out 2”.
