Huey Lewis Mockumentary-Style Comedy In Works At Fox From Kirker Butler, Jimmy Kimmel & Kapital

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Huey Lewis is ready to give fans a glimpse into his life, Curb Your Enthusiasm-style. The rock and roll star is set to headline and executive produce Whatever Happened to Huey Lewis, a comedic half-hour mockumentary in which he will play a fictionalized version of himself. The single-camera project, which is in development at Fox, hails from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot and Fox Entertainment Studios, Fox Entertainment’s recently consolidated studio unit.

Written and executive produced by Kirker Butler (Only Murders In the Building), Whatever Happened to Huey Lewis follows rock and roll legend Huey Lewis as he navigates his new life after losing his hearing. With the help of his codependent family and eccentric celebrity friends, Huey will tackle this hilarious next phase with his signature Heart and Soul.

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Kaplan executive produces for Kapital; Kimmel & Scott Lonker for Kimmelot. Kevin Marco is the creative executive for Kapital.

Lewis revealed in 2018 that he had hearing loss as a result of Ménière’s disease. He and Kapital previously teamed for an hourlong anthology series, each season of which was designed as a self-contained romantic story inspired by Lewis’ music. In a competitive situation, the project landed at Fox for development in 2021. Meanwhile, Lewis and Kimmel are longtime friends and fly-fishing buddies. Kaplan and Kimmelot also are collaborating on The Home, a comedy series inspired by the MPTF residential community, which is expected to be re-taken out to market shortly.

Grammy-winning Lewis and his band Huey Lewis & The News have sold over 30 million albums and have had a slew of Top 10 singles over the years with hits like “The Heart of Rock & Roll,” “I Want a New Drug” and the Oscar-nominated, chart-topping “Power of Love” from Back to the Future. In February 2020, the band released Weather, their first new album of original material in nearly two decades. The musical The Heart of Rock and Roll, featuring the band’s music, had a run Broadway this year.

As an actor, Lewis played Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago on Broadway. He also appeared in the movie Duets with Gwyneth Paltrow and had a recurring role on the sitcom Hot in Cleveland. In 2015, he reprised his Back To the Future cameo on Jimmy Kimmel Live in a skit featuring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd to mark the day Doc and Marty traveled to the future in the second movie from the trilogy. Lewis is repped by Paradigm, attorney Joe Carlone of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano and music agent Dan Weiner.

Kimmel and Kimmelot, which is behind the Emmy-winning Live In Front of a Studio Audience franchise, are repped by manager James Dixon and attorney Andy Galker.

Butler, a former client of Kaplan’s while he was agent at WMA, works as a writer-producer on Seth MacFarlane’s Peacock comedy series Ted. He has worked on Only Murders in the Building, Family Guy, Galavant as well as Kapital’s Life in Pieces, The Neighbors and Housebroken. His debut novel, Pretty Ugly, was published by St. Martin’s Press and is being adapted into a series, while his second novel, 7 Handfuls of Simeon Luck, is being adapted into a film. He is repped by WME and Jamie Mandelbaum.

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