Cameron Crowe Teams With J.J. Abrams & ‘My So-Called Life’ Creator For Showtime Comedy Series ‘Roadies’

Nearly ten years on, and Cameron Crowe‘s career is still putting itself back together after “Elizabethtown.” Before that, Crowe was riding high with a number of hits in a row, most notably “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous,” but the much-derided Orlando Bloom/Kirsten Dunst film ended his run of success, and Crowe had trouble getting another project set up for a while, with six years passing until his next film, 2011’s “We Bought A Zoo,” and even that (while solid enough) was something of a work-for-hire gig.

But things are looking up in a big way. Crowe’s currently in post-production on a still-untitled comedy (once known as “Deep Tiki“), with the A-grade rom-com pairing of Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone (along with ace supporting players like Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Jay Baruchel, Bill Murray, Danny McBride and Alec Baldwin) that hits at Christmas. And now news has revived from the freshly resurrected Nikki Finke that Crowe has another project, and it involves switching mediums.

According to the sorceress of gossip, Crowe is developing a TV comedy pilot for Showtime called “Roadies” with J.J. Abrams and his production company Bad Robot. As the title suggests, it seems to be a return to the kind of setting of “Almost Famous,” being an ensemble comedy set on a U.S. rock tour, and Crowe has written, and will direct the pilot. The creator of “My So-Called Life,” Winnie Holzman, who also wrote musical “Wicked,” would serve as showrunner after that.

All in all, this seems like a fairly spectacular line-up of talent: Crowe’s skill set has always seemed well suited to something like this, and it’s hard to think of a better fit for his sensibility than Holzman. It’s worth stressing that the show hasn’t yet been picked up beyond a pilot, but given that Showtime have a comedy-shaped hole in their schedule (“Californication” wraps up this year, and new commission “Happyish” having been put into limbo by the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman), it’s hard to see them passing on this. Happy day. In the meantime, Crowe’s latest film hits theaters on Christmas Day.