“Love” doesn’t bite for “Will and Grace” alums Tracy Poust and Jon Kinnally, who have taken over as showrunners on NBC’s troubled newcomer “Love Bites.”
Poust and Kinnally replace Cindy Chupack, who opted to depart the show earlier this month for still-undisclosed personal reasons.
Chupack’s exit was one of several incidences dogging the show in recent weeks — ultimately forcing NBC to postpone the anthology hour to midseason.
Simultaneously, star Becki Newton announced her pregnancy — a storyline that would have been difficult to write into the show. Also, Jordana Spiro, who originally co-starred on “Love Bites,” was not able to return to the show due to her committments to TBS’ “Love Bites.”
NBC was still going to try and make the show work in the fall — but Chupack’s exit was the final straw that led to the Peacock’s decision to hold the show back.
Poust and Kinnally will serve as exec producers on “Love Bites” along side director Marc Buckland, as well as Shelley McCrory. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are also EPs.
As part of the deal, Kinnally and Poust have also signed two-year, seven-figure overall deals with Universal Media Studios, which produces “Love Bites.”
“We worked with Jon and Tracy for many years on ‘Will and Grace’ and feel hey are perfect for tis job on ‘Love Bites,’ said NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios programming prexy Angela Bromstad. “Not only do they bring intelligence, passion and great experience, but they are one of the funniest writing duos working in television today.”
The duo’s other credits include “Ugly Betty” and “In Case of Emergency.” They previously were set up at ABC Studios under their last deal.
