Academy Award winner Taika Waititi and Emmy nominee Jemaine Clement are working on a new comedy series created by Cori Gonzalez-Macuer and Louis Mendiola.
The show is entitled Ass and was highlighted by the influential Black List, which brings attention to the screen industry's most liked unproduced screenplays every year.
Described by the Black List as feeling like "a new sort of entertainment", the series will follow a depressed, broke puppeteer who reluctantly accepts top-secret work filling in for a famous donkey actor on a popular political comedy TV show in the US.
Waititi will serve as executive producer while Clement will direct the script, which Gonzalez-Macuer and Mendiola wrote together.
"I've worked on a few things over the years, but this project feels like it's actually going somewhere," says Gonzalez-Macuer.
"It's an awesome combination of working with Louis, a production company that is actually investing in us and now with Taika and Jemaine involved, it'd be pretty weird if we f**ked it up."
Mendiola adds: "It's just been bonkers, in all the best ways."
Auckland and New York-based production company Augusto won the rights to develop and produce Ass, which is currently being shopped to US-based broadcasters and streaming services.
There's no word yet on how the show would be broadcast in Aotearoa or who is likely to star in it.
Augusto is planning to move into production on Ass in 2021.
