EXCLUSIVE: Tim Allen, star of Home Improvement and Last Man Standing, is returning to ABC with a new multi-camera sitcom. The network has handed a pilot order to a family comedy headlined by the veteran actor-comedian.
Tentatively titled Shifting Gears, the project comes from Duncanville co-creators Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Sully who executive produce with Last Man Standing executive producers Allen, Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Richard Baker and Rick Messina and the series’ studio, 20th Television.
Written by the Scullys, Shifting Gears centers on Matt (Allen), a stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop. When Matt’s estranged daughter and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.
Allen is currently in the Disney family as star and executive producer of the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses, which returned for a second season in November. The Calvin family comedy has yet to hear on a third season renewal and we hear there won’t be a new installment for this upcoming holiday season but it could return in 2025. If that happens and Shifting Gears is picked up to series, Allen would be able to do both; they are produced by the same studio, 20th Television.
This marks the first pilot order for ABC this season. The network has been shifting to year-round development that targets two launch pads, fall and midseason.
Allen’s last network comedy, Last Man Standing, started on ABC where it aired for six seasons before being canceled. It was subsequently picked up by Fox (then a sister network to 20th Television before the studio was acquired by ABC parent Disney) where it ran for three more seasons.
Allen, who recently reprised his role as Buzz Lightyear in Disney’s Oscar-winning Toy Story 4, is repped by Messina Baker Entertainment, WME and Ziffren Brittenham.