‘Suits’ Spinoff Scores Pilot Order at NBC
NBCUniversal’s expansion of the Suits universe is taking another step forward.
Following the runaway success of the former USA Network legal drama on streaming platforms last year, NBC has ordered a pilot for a companion series. The project, from Suits creator Aaron Korsh, is called Suits: L.A. and will be set in the same world as the original show — but will follow a new group of characters.
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Universal Studio Group’s UCP, which produced the original, is also behind the Los Angeles-set spinoff. The studio and Korsh started developing the project in October, following Suits’ massive summertime run at the top of the streaming charts after it was added to Netflix (the series also streams on NBCU’s Peacock platform). At the time, it wasn’t clear where the project would land, although somewhere within NBCU was most likely. With USA largely out of the scripted business, NBC became the pilot’s home.
Korsh is writing Suits: L.A. and will executive produce with Dave Bartis, Doug Liman and Gene Klein, all of whom were EPs on the USA show. Victoria Mahoney (Seven Seconds, Grey’s Anatomy) will direct and be an exec producer of the pilot.
The show is also on a pretty fast track, with production scheduled to begin in March in Vancouver — which, should it go to series, would put it in play for the 2024-25 season.
No casting has been announced yet, and whether any actors from the original series pop up in the spinoff also remains to be seen. Original series star Patrick J. Adams said he would be up for a return: “If I got the phone call, I’m ready to suit up again,” he said before the Golden Globe Awards. “I love the show, I love the character and I loved working with all these people.”
Suits: L.A. will center on Ted Black, a former federal prosecutor in New York who has reinvented himself while representing powerful clients in Los Angeles. “His firm is at a crisis point, and in order to survive he must embrace a role he held in contempt his entire career,” the show’s description reads. “Ted is surrounded by a stellar group of characters who test their loyalties to both Ted and each other while they can’t help but mix their personal and professional lives. All of this is going on while events from years ago slowly unravel that led Ted to leave behind everything and everyone he loved.”
U.S. TV viewers watched 57.7 billion minutes of Suits in 2023, according to Nielsen — the highest yearly total in the four years the ratings service has publicly shared streaming data.
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