After more than one Barry-less year, Bill Hader is ready to return from on high and bless us with another television show. Per Variety, the former Inside Out emotion is developing a comedy series for HBO with Barry writer and childhood friend Duffy Boudreau. While reports of a new anything from Hader is cause for celebration, the logline surrounding this new one is basically nothing. “A woman in a small town has a big secret revealed.” Great, another TV show about a small-town woman who gets canceled. We kid. The secret is obviously that the woman is Superman.
In addition to growing up with him, Boudreau has worked on various Hader and Hader-adjacent projects. After getting his start on Documentary Now!, Boudreau wrote for Big Mouth, Hit-Monkey, and Barry, including the stand-out “710N,” which featured that wild car chase. Meanwhile, we haven’t seen Bill Hader since he popped up on John Mulaney’s Everybody’s In L.A. to see Waingro do standup. Could Waingro be a part of this big secret this small-town woman is hiding? We have no idea, but we like to see Kevin Gage working.
“Barry” veterans and childhood friends Bill Hader and Duffy Boudreau are developing a new comedy pilot at HBO, TheWrap has learned. The untitled project follows a woman in a small town who has a big secret revealed.
Hader and Boudreau are writing the pilot script and will serve as co-writers and executive producers on the project.
The two grew up together in Tulsa, Oklahoma and worked closely on Hader’s Emmy-winning HBO comedy series “Barry” throughout its run, with Boudreau serving as writer and co-executive producer (he wrote Season 3’s excellent “710N,” among others). The two also worked together on the IFC comedy series “Documentary Now!,” for which Boudreau was a writer.
Hader co-created and starred in “Barry,” which launched on HBO in 2018 and earned Hader two Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He served as showrunner throughout the series’ run and wrote and directed many episodes, directing the entire fourth and final season himself. The show concluded in 2023.
The Hader/Boudreau pilot marks the latest in a series of moves in the comedy space for HBO as the network aims to bulk up its comedy slate. The network recently ordered to series new comedies from Tim Robinson, Rachel Sennott and Steve Carell and Bill Lawrence.
Variety was the first to report the news of the new Hader/Boudreau pilot.
Bill Hader is set to develop a brand-new HBO comedy. Hader is a comedic actor known for his work on Saturday Night Live. He has previously worked with HBO on the dark comedy television series Barry, wherein he plays a hitman who moves to Los Angeles and gets caught up in the city's theater scene. Hader was nominated for multiple Emmys for Barry, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.
Per Variety, Hader is working with HBO again on a new comedy series. The series does not yet have a title, but the vague logline reads “A woman in a small town has a big secret revealed.” Hader will be working on the HBO project with Duffy Boudreau. The pair will be co-writers and executive producers on the series. The casting information, release date, and production schedule have all yet to be revealed for this project.
Boudreau and Hader are an exciting pair to bring back to HBO. Like Hader, Boudreau also worked as a writer on Barry. He was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2022, for the episode “710N.” In addition, Boudreau and Hader have worked together co-writing several episodes of Documentary Now. This past collaboration is a good sign for the new HBO show, as the pair have previously shown their ability to work together on high-quality, and deeply funny, content.
As of yet, it is unclear whether Hader will star in the show in addition to writing and executive producing. In the case of both Documentary Now and Barry, Hader was a main actor on-screen in addition to his behind-the-scenes role. If this new HBO show follows the same pattern, Hader will likely be a main character in this new show as well. He will probably not be the lead if the logline is accurate, though, as it positions “a woman in a small town” as the protagonist.
This new HBO series has all the threads of being a great show, but beyond just that, it could be a great step in Hader's career. Throughout the last couple of years, Hader's career has been largely split between voice acting for family films (e.g. Lightyear and IF) and his work on Barry. This new series could be a great chance for Hader to explore his work in premium television further. I think Barry, with its 98% Tomatometer and Emmy nods, is a great justification for why this is the right career move.
