EXCLUSIVE: Fake Empire duo Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, best known for guiding Gossip Girl, have struck a first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios and set up a luxurious new drama series.
The pair have struck a two-year deal with the company, which they are already in business with on a number of projects including Sterling Point, a drama from My Old Ass writer/director Megan Park.
They have set their first project under the new deal – a drama set in Barneys New York.
The untitled series is set when Barneys reopens its doors in Manhattan, and the fashion elite and behind-the-scenes staff collide in a whirlwind of ambition, secrets, and style.
Barneys was a New York institution; a high-end department store that was founded in 1923. After being acquired by Authentic Brands Group, it closed its brick-and-mortars stores but remained as a brand, particularly as a partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue as well as its own beauty line. Last year, there was also a pop-up Barneys in Soho.
Schwartz and Savage will serve as creators and showrunners for the show, which is in the works for Prime Video.
The project comes from Susan Rovner’s Aha Studios, which she launched last year, and is already behind a number of high-profile projects including The Fishbowl, a medical procedural set up at CBS with Nell Scovell, and CBS cooking series America’s Culinary Cup, starring and exec produced by Padma Lakshmi.
Rovner will exec produce the Barneys drama with Schwartz, Savage, former Warner Bros. TV exec Rachel Kaplan, who runs Absecon Entertainment, and Matthew Gross and Colin Smeeton from Authentic Studios.
In fact, it also marks a reunion between Schwartz and Savage and Rovner and Kaplan, as the latter duo were at Warner Bros. TV during the original Gossip Girl series.
Schwartz and Savage are no strangers to Barneys (or high-end shopping in their series). In the original Gossip Girl series, which they created and ran, Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, had a pop-up shop in the store and often spoke about her three Bs: Barneys, Bendels and Bergdorfs. The pair actually shot scenes in Barneys, helped by the fact that they were able to push and get the show shot in New York, with its fashion scenes, rather than LA, where the studio wanted the show filmed. They also featured clothes from designers and had cameos from the likes of Tory Burch, Georgina Chapman, Diane von Furstenberg, Vera Wang, Cynthia Rowley, Michael Kors, Isaac Mizrahi and Humberto Leon.
Schwartz and Savage have previously had a number of overall and first-look deals at Warner Bros. TV, Disney, a broadcast-only deal with CBS Studios and Apple.
The pair are behind a litany of hit series including Fox’s The O.C., The CW’s Hart of Dixie, Dynasty and Nancy Drew, Hulu’s Runaways and Looking for Alaska. The pair are also developing a remake of Clueless at Peacock.
Nick Pepper, Head, US SVOD TV Development and Series – Wholly Owned, Amazon MGM Studios, said, “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage of Fake Empire. Their dedication to excellence makes them the perfect creative partners for developing exceptional new content for our global Prime Video customers. We look forward to collaborating with them on engaging stories, including, the Untitled Barneys New York Project, based on the iconic New York City clothing store, as well as the recently ordered Sterling Point.”
“Amazon Prime Video is an exciting and dynamic place to be working right now, led by great, smart executives who are focused on delivering compelling, commercially driven storytelling. We’re thrilled to embark on Sterling Point alongside producing partners LuckyChap and co-showrunner and creator Megan Park, as well as the opportunity to create new series designed to resonate with a global audience,” added Schwartz and Savage.
The pair are repped by WME, McKuin Frankel Whitehead and Aloft.