Amy Poehler, HBO team for dark musical comedy “Edison”

PanARMENIAN.Net - HBO is teaming a few comedic masterminds for its latest project.

The premium cable network has put into development Edison, a dark musical starring Bob's Burgers favorite John Roberts, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The comedy is based on Roberts' life and stars the voice of Bob's Burgers' Linda Belcher as John, a 40-year-old real estate broker who dreams of living life in the big city but remains stuck in his small hometown of Edison, N.J.

Roberts will pen the script alongside Archer's H. Jon Benjamin. The duo will executive produce with Amy Poehler and her Paper Kite Productions topper Brooke Posch. Dave Becky of 3 Arts also will exec produce.

Edison hails from Universal Television, where Paper Kite is under a rich overall deal. This marks a key off-network sale for NBCUniversal's Universal Television and major outside buy for HBO. It is Paper Kite's first project with the premium cable network and comes days after ABC picked up Carol Burnett starrer Household Name to pilot. Paper Kite continues to make its mark in the TV space, with Comedy Central staple Broad City as well as Hulu's Billy Eichner vehicle Difficult People. On the feature side, the production banner recently acquired feature rights to the upcoming book Moxie and is developing an untitled basketball comedy feature for Universal in which Poehler will also star.

Roberts is repped by APA, The Coronel Group and attorney Josh Sandler. Benjamin is with UTA and Lev Ginsburg. Paper Kite is with WME, 3 Arts and Warren Dern.

Should Edison go to series, it would join a roster of comedies at HBO that includes the upcoming Pete Holmes entry Crashing and Bill Hader vehicle Barry, as well as Veep, Ballers, Divorce and Insecure.