“Fresh Off the Boat” creator Nahnatchka Khan has secured her own production deal at 20th Century Fox TV, Variety reports. The multiyear deal will see Khan creating, writing, developing, and supervising projects under her preexisting Fierce Baby Productions banner. Khan will remain showrunner on “Fresh Off the Boat,” set to return for a third season on ABC October 11.
Due to Khan’s busy schedule, 20th TV’s Mandy Summer will join Fierce Baby Productions as head of development. She and Khan will work together to discover new writing talent.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky to be at 20th for basically the entire run of my professional career,” Khan said in a statement. “Thanks to Jonnie Davis and Howard Kurtzman for making this happen and for being the best partners in the game. And a huge thanks to Dana Walden and Gary Newman for always encouraging and supporting me, I’m proud to be on their team. And if Kim Kardashian decides to release a Snapchat video of me saying anything different, she’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
Khan, who also created Fox’s “Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23,” recently sold her script for “Hair Wars” to Fox 2000 after an intense bidding war. The film’s storyline is based on a real competition where hair salons compete against each other. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Sculptural hair is shown off through song and dance numbers as part of the competition. Sources say the pitch calls for diverse leads and the story explores identity.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like somewhat of an outsider, because my experience is not the majority’s,” Khan has said. It’s a sad fact that “Fresh Off the Boat” is the first American television comedy centered on an Asian-American family since comedian Margaret Cho’s “All-American Girl” aired for one season on ABC in 1994. But Khan has also described the value of that felt “outsider” status, as far as her creative process and popular success are concerned. “Being a woman, Persian, and gay, I become more and more of an outsider with every click of the microscope. But what’s fun for me is to take the way I’ve seen the world and have it inform the way I write the characters. It feels different to me than maybe the way a white guy experiences the world through his prism.” She has shared that she seeks out other “outsiders” for writers’ rooms.
