Gender Swapped ‘Sober Companion’ & Jorma Taccone-Directed Comedy ‘The Hug Machine’ Land CBS Pilot Orders

deadline.com:

CBS is going back into the vault for one of its latest comedy pilots.The network has ordered two comedy pilots – Sober Companion, a project that previously featured Justin Long, and The Hug Machine, directed by Lonely Island’s Jorma TacconeSober Companion is exec produced by and featuring a story from Jane The Virgin exec producer Jennie Snyder Urman.The multi-camera comedy, which comes from CBS Studios, was originally set up at Fox in 2014 with Long in the starring role.

However, the project, which was originally written by Snyder Urman and David Rosenthal, didn’t make it past the pilot stage and has now be retooled through a female lens.The Long role – he played Jeremy in the original – has turned into Eliza, a hot-mess alcoholic who owns a bar with her uncle in New Orleans, but is forced to get her life together when the court appoints her an exhaustingly upbeat sober companion with whom she has to live 24/7.It is back as a multi-camera comedy, having originally started as that before being turned into a single-camera project to appeal to Long, who was starring alongside Nick Frost.Rosenthal, who was Urman’s former boss on Gilmore Girls and also exec produced Jane The Virgin with her, is back on board to write the new take on the series alongside The Neighborhood and 9JKL writer Gracie Glassmeyer.In fact, Glassmeyer, whose idea it was to bring it back, and Rosenthal actually got engaged during the making of the original pilot and married a year later.Another fun aside: the comedy made it on to the wall of Fox’s 2014 presentation at the Beacon Theatre, despite not being picked up (left).Glassmeyer and Rosenthal will exec produce alongside Snyder Urman and her Sutton Street Productions partner Joanna Klein.Separately,