Now that Vice Principals has gone gently into that good night, Danny McBride is ready for his next trick. Today, HBO announced a pilot order for the McBride-created comedy The Righteous Gemstones, which will also star McBride and John Goodman.
McBride, a Writers Guild of America Award nominee for Eastbound and Down, isn’t just the brains behind the idea for The Righteous Gemstones. He’s also set to write, executive produce, direct, and star in the series. Jody Hill and David Gordon Green, both veterans of Vice Principals and Eastbound and Down, are set to executive produce alongside their longtime business partner.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, The Righteous Gemstones centers on “a world-famous televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed and charitable work, all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Goodman, lately of Roseanne and its upcoming, Roseanne Barr-free spinoff tentatively titled The Conners, will play Eli, the Gemstone family patriarch. THR describes the character as “unbending and a force in the ministry game,” a person who is “known the world over for his aggressive salvation techniques, his global ministries and his award-winning weekly television program.” The phrase “takes no guff” is also used, which makes us think less of Roseanne and more of The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, so color us interested.
(Read: HBO’s Vice Principals Returns and the Stakes are Life and Death)
McBride, predictably, plays Goodman’s son, in this case the eldest. Per THR, he “demands loyalty from those in his circle” and “fancies himself a maverick in the ministry game, taking what Eli has built and expanding it for a more modern audience.”
The Righteous Gemstones is the latest addition to a crowded HBO pilot slate, which includes Mrs. Fletcher, Run, and Watchmen. Returning series include Veep, Crashing, Insecure, Camping, Room 104, and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s beloved Ballers.
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