HBO Greenlights Comedy Pilot SPRING/FALL Starring Tea Leoni

HBO has greenlit Spring/Fall, a half-hour comedy pilot led by Tea Leoni.  The series is set in the New York fashion world: Leoni plays “half of a dysfunctional partnership between two women with different approaches to career, family, and friendship.”  Kate Robin (Six Feet Under) wrote the script and will produce with Leoni, Jimmy Miller (The Other Guys), and documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler (The September Issue).  Deadline imparts that the pilot will shoot this June.

Leoni will next be seen in Tower Heist, which opens November 8.  Hit the jump for a look how this fits into the overall scope of HBO’s development.

HBO’s current half-hour comedies — Entourage, Hung, Eastbound & Down — tend to skew male, but the projects in the pipeline suggest intent to program a female-oriented comedy block in the near future.  To name a few:

• Enlightened – Laura Dern plays a woman who undergoes a spiritual awakening; created by Mike White (Year of the Dog)
• Veep – Julia Louis-Dreyfuss stars as the vice president; created by Armando Iannucci (In the Loop)
• Girls – Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) is developing the series with Judd Apatow
• Stitch N’ Bitch – Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat wrote the hipster-mocking script with Sean Tillman; Page and Shawkat may star
• I’m With the Band – Zooey Deschanel plays a groupie in the late 1960s; based on the memoir by Pamela Des Barres, who reportedly conquered Mick Jagger, Keith Moon, and Jimmy Page among others

Whether HBO wants to harken back to the Sex and the City salad days or compete with Showtime’s femme-friendly comedy lineup, they now have plenty of ammunition.  It will be interesting to see which of these make it to air.  Tilda seemed like a lock given stars Diane Keaton and Ellen Page.  But HBO passed on the series.