Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s Memoir Is Being Turned Into An ABC Comedy Pilot

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

astronaut's guideWith America’s newfound attention to conquering space still in its relative infancy, it’ll be a few more years before a new class of astronauts implants their names and achievements in our minds. (Not that I’m trying to downplay the hardworking astronauts of today, but society at large is slow on the upkeep.) But one space-goer, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, made quite a name for himself last year by turning the International Space Station into a social media hub. His life and times are about to meet a much larger audience as his memoir An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth has been given a pilot commitment by ABC. The Astronaut Broadcasting Company?

The 2013 memoir, with a full title of An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything, was at the center of a heated bidding war between networks, with ABC coming out on top. They’ve only given the project a pilot order, with no guarantee for the future, but I guess if anyone knows what questionable futures are like, astronauts do.

The multi-camera sitcom is being developed for Warner Bros. TV by Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, the duo responsible for co-creating the series $#*! My Dad Says and Surviving Jack, which Fox cancelled earlier this year. (Halpern also wrote the book that the former series was adapted from.) They’ll be writing the pilot’s script and serve as executive producers alongside Erwin Stoff and Tom Lassally of 3 Arts, with Hadfield himself serving as a consulting producer. My guess is, he’ll be standing around on set offering insightful tidbits that are eventually ignored in order to add the corniest jokes known to man. (I guess that refers more to CBS, but ABC is also a frequent offender.)

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth will be a family comedy centered on an astronaut arriving back home after a space mission. As you can probably imagine, he soon finds that life on Earth is rougher than anything he ever experienced off-planet.

extant
“Gee, I wonder what that’s like.”
Speaking of CBS, this plotline sounds extremely similar to Extant, but I’m guessing Astronaut’s Guide‘s android child budget hovers around $0. Hadfield is such an interesting guy, and his book conveys that perfectly, but I cannot imagine an ABC sitcom is going to add to his legacy. Unless he plays the wacky next-door neighbor or something. I’d dig that.

Watch the trailer for Hadfield’s book below.

Start placing your bets on what dashing actor will take on the leading role. Buzz Aldrin, perhaps?