EXCLUSIVE: Imagine Entertainment is developing a a narrative feature centered on the story of Tom and Dick Smothers, the trailblazing comedy duo better known as The Smothers Brothers, Deadline has learned.
Based on the book Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by David Bianculli, the film will be written and produced by Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro — the duo behind shows like USA’s Necessary Roughness — and Dan Patterson. Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Jeb Brody, alongside Good Walk Entertainment’s Kent Alterman and Sarah Babineau, will also produce, with Brody and Joyce Choi overseeing for Imagine.
Titled Dangerously Funny, the Smothers Brothers film will dive into an incredible moment in comedy, culture, and politics when Tom and Dick Smothers challenged CBS censors, Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and ultimately each other. The duo did so via their comedy variety show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which in its two-year run on CBS, made a major impact with its political satire. The Smothers Brothers used the program as a platform to critique the Vietnam War and tackle other hot topics, coming into conflict with censors, who demanded cuts or last-minute edits to jokes, and fighting management to keep their material intact.
Satirization of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration had Washington bristling at one point, though Johnson later on wrote to the duo to concede, “It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists,” applauding them for giving “the gift of laughter to our people.” After Richard Nixon took office, the program continued to question the war in Vietnam and conservative backlash, further escalating political pressure.
At its core, the Smothers Brothers movie is about two brilliant brothers who were creatively intertwined in an uncommon sense, and whose vision for comedy set new cultural precedents to protect our freedom of speech. These were comedians who challenged the status quo and paid the price for speaking truth to power on national television, whose groundbreaking work also paved the way for comedic landmarks like The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live. Of course, given the seismic shift in the late night landscape at the moment, with the cancellation of the The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, speculation as to the motivations there, and political satire in general under pressure once again, the themes of the film are timely.
Known for their work on such major award winners as A Beautiful Mind and The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, Imagine’s recent projects include The Gringo Hunters, a Netflix drama based on investigative reporting in the Washington Post, and a feature-length Barbara Walters doc for Hulu. Presently, the company has another awards contender in the Amazon MGM thriller After the Hunt, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny, which premiered in Venice and hits theaters on October 10. Upcoming, they also have a doc on renowned photographer Richard Avedon with Howard at the helm.
Kruger and Shapiro are repped by UTA and Anonymous Content; Patterson by Mainstay Entertainment; and Bianculli by The Linda Chester Literary Agency.
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