Will & Grace creators David
Kohan and Max Mutchnick return to TV with a new gay sitcom. Variety
is reporting that ABC has greenlighted a new comedy by the duo.
The untitled project revolves around
two best friends and business partners, one gay and one straight,
whose friendship is tested when they both become seriously involved
in relationships at the same time.
Kohan & Mutchnick are best know for
creating the hit NBC sitcom Will & Grace which ran for
eight seasons from 1998 to 2006. The show revolved around the
friendship of Grace Adler, a straight interior designer, and Will
Truman, a gay lawyer. Grace's assistant Karen Walker, also a rich
socialite, would often display bisexual tendencies. Will's best
friend - singer, dancer, actor, nurse, TV host, executive Jack
McFarland - was also gay.
Mixed sexual preference friendships
might come easy to the writing pair as they mirror their own
relationship – Kohan is straight and Mutchnick is gay. Kohan and
Mutchnick have been friends since attending Beverly Hills High
School.
Lovable characters find their entangled
lives complicated by AIDS in 1984 Paris in André
Téchiné's
The Witnesses (Les Témoins),
a 2007 Berlin International Film Festival official selection.
Witnesses offers us not the
politics of AIDS, nor is it a documentary about the disease, it is
more about the human aspects of AIDS – the grief, lives altered.
We ultimately bear witness to the dawn of AIDS in France, the
horrific early years. Witnesses would say we emerge stronger
for the experience.
Of the three gay characters none is a
cliché. In the movie's press notes Téchiné says
of that decision, “I can never accept that a character be reduced
to his or her sexual orientation. Withdrawing behind an identity is
very dangerous... Everyone is a person in their own right and it is
no more a variant of homosexuality than heterosexuality.”
Reviewers have praised Witnesses.
Boston Globe film reviewer Wesley Morris called the film,
“...Téchiné's best film since 1998's superb Alice
Et Martin, and 1994's even better Wild Reeds.”
The Witnesses is playing
nationwide in select theaters.