While it was inspired in part by the viral video star, Nia Vardalos’s new series is not, in fact, about the life of internet micro-celeb Chewbacca Mom, nor is it about Chewbacca’s actual mom, so your original pilot and screenplay remain saleable for another day. Instead, the My Big Fat Greek Wedding star is currently developing a dramedy based on a fictional mom thrust into the public eye via meme fame. Suburbs Famous, currently in development at Bravo, would star Vardalos as a suburban housewife who “accidentally becomes famous in a viral video. Thrust into the cutthroat world of celebrity chefs, the newly divorced mom must navigate between the intense public scrutiny which could destroy her and the investors who want to make her a star.”
The idea for the show, Vardalos told Deadline, started to germinate when she met Chewbacca Mom, a Texas woman named Candace Payne, who loves to laugh, last year on a morning show. She explained, “I wanted to explore the concept of sudden fame for someone who isn’t prepared and doesn’t want it, for someone who gets power and doesn’t know what to do with it, as well as what happens next.” For those of you horrified at the idea of a scripted Chewbacca Mom show, you can breathe easy. For the rest of us, looks like you’ll have to keep shopping that pilot around.
