Viola Davis has a comedy series in development at ABC. According to Deadline, the network has put into development a single-cam comedy set in the 1960s produced by Davis called The Zipcoders. The project follows “a divorced mother of three who moves her family to the East Side of Austin, Texas, soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in an effort to be closer to her estranged sister. Once there, her teenage son forms a rock ‘n’ roll band, to the utter bewilderment of friends, family and the community at large.” Barbershop’s Marshall Todd wrote the script and serves as a co-executive producer alongside Davis and Julius Tennon. “This project gives me the opportunity to tell a story that, while specific to the African-American experience, doesn’t travel in the usual tropes,” Todd said on the project. “As a parent I was inspired to tell a story from the dual perspective of parents and children in a world where the rules are constantly changing. Music has always been a passion of mine and to be able to use it to inform this particular narrative was a provocative challenge.”
Viola Davis Developing ’60s Comedy ‘The Zipcoders’ at ABC
