Proving once again its ability to pull back together entertainment heavyweights, Apple TV Plus has announced an order of 10 half-hour episodes of a new comedy series starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and executive produced by David West Read.
Produced by Apple and Skydance Television, the untitled comedy is described as a “heartfelt odd-couple love story revolving around the strange and beautiful bond” between Harrelson and his fictional family and McConaughey’s TV brood, with the former moving onto the latter’s Texas ranch.
West Read, who put himself on the map as producer of Emmy darling Schitt's Creek, is already in Apple's good graces — his comedy series The Big Door Prize was just screened at SXSW and debuts on Apple TV Plus March 29.
McConaughey and Harrelson have worked together on numerous occasions, perhaps most notably paired in the 2014 installment of HBO's True Detective.
Harrelson, who perplexed some of the global entertainment market when he belied his belief in certain anti-vax conspiracy theories several weeks ago while hosting Saturday Night Live, is currently in pop-culture circulation as the star of Bobby Farrelly's sports comedy Champions, which debuted in theaters last Friday to somewhat tepid results.
McConaughey, meanwhile, has been widely reported to be possibly replacing Kevin Costner in the forward-looking portion of uber-producer Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone franchise at Paramount.
As for Apple TV Plus, its flagship comedy series, Ted Lasso, is returning for at least one more season starting March 15. But now more than three years after its launch, few if anybody outside Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters know how many subscribers pay for Apple TV Plus. ■
