Little Fires Everywhere and Tiny Beautiful Things creator/showrunner Liz Tigelaar has left her long-time home at Disney for an exclusive three-year overall deal at Paramount with both Paramount TV Studios and CBS Studios. It’s the first ever shared overall deal for the two studios (including both the current and previous incarnation of Paramount TV Studios) and the first collaboration between the two units since they were established as the main TV production arms following Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount Global.
Joint overall deals are rare and typically employed to help shoulder the cost associated with top talent among two studios. Tigelaar is a rare showrunner of her caliber to become free agent. After spending most of her career at Disney, including the majority of the last 15 years under multiple overall deals, she opted for a change as her most recent pact came to an end and met with several studios in late fall. Fielding multiple offers, by early December, she had decided to go with Paramount, with the particulars of the deal taking weeks to iron out.
Tigelaar’s overall agreement, which begins in February, brings her back to CBS Studios, which signed Tigelaar into her first overall deal in 2009, giving her the chance to create her first series, the CW’s Life Unexpected. CBS Studios’ top creative executives David Stapf and Bryan Seabury were both there at the time.
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Under the PTVS/CBS Studios deal, Tigelaar will develop series for streaming and broadcast through her banner Best Day Ever Productions alongside the company’s VP of development Abby Chambers. The two will work with PTVS’ Matt Thunell and Shelley Zimmerman and CBS Studios’ Stapf and Seabury, along with their teams.
PTVS and CBS Studios will collaborate during the creative process and will co-produce all projects that come out of the deal, marking another first for the two studios. It is unclear whether the team-up on the Tigelaar pact could be a precursor to a further cooperation (or even consolidation) down the road.
In 2022, top producer Warren Littlefield signed a similar joint deal with the two major TV studios in the Disney fold following the acquisition of Fox assets, 20th Television and ABC Signature. Two years later, the studios were merged into one.
“Having Liz join us at PTVS and CBS Studios for her next chapter feels like both a homecoming and a new beginning,” CBS Studios Stapf and PTVS President Thunell said in a joined statement. “She is an extraordinary creative force with a unique voice that blends emotional truth, humor and humanity in a way that resonates deeply with audiences. We are eager, along with our teams, to collaborate with Liz once again as she continues to create and build worlds that reflect her bold storytelling and heart.”
In addition to CBS Studios’ Stapf and Seabury, Tigelaar also has an existing relationship with FTVS’ Zimmerman.
“I am so thrilled to join not one but two incredible studios, each prolific at developing hit television. My history with this team runs deep; my admiration runs even deeper,” Tigelaar said. “Shelley brought me my first book adaptation, igniting what would become a passion. David wholeheartedly championed my first (and second!) pilot. Bryan was the studio executive in the trenches with me on my first show that went to series, Life Unexpected. And I have been so eager to work with Matt — a strategic leader and creative force. Together, we have a shared vision which will allow me to pursue my love of adaptations, while dreaming up new, impactful stories with heart and humor.”
The book Zimmerman — then an executive at Warner Bros. TV — brought to Tigelaar was Swamplandia. Book adaptations have become a cornerstone of Tigelaar’s career, including her three most recent series, all for Hulu.
They include Little Fires Everywhere, starring and executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, and Tiny Beautiful Things, starring Kathryn Hahn, on which Tigelaar was a creator, executive producer and showrunner, and Under the Bridge, which she executive produced.
The female focus of Tigelaar’s work fits into the new Paramount+ regime’s push for more female-skewing drama series to balance out the Taylor Sheridan slate. FTVS is the streamer’s main supplier.
Tigelaar’s series credits also include Hulu’s Casual, ABC’s What About Brian, Dirty Sexy Money, Brothers and Sisters, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, Nashville, and Astronaut Wives Club, along with A&E’s Bates Motel. She is repped by UTA and Wendy Kirk at Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.