Jake Johnson will lead the cast of NBC‘s private eye workplace comedy pilot from the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” team.
“Smart, cynical and heartbroken, but trying to pretend he’s not, Mickey is a private investigator with a knack for solving cases. Formerly an LAPD cop until his life imploded three years ago,” reads a character description provided by NBC.
The series, in contention for the 2026-27 TV season along with two other comedy pilots, comes from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” co-creator Dan Goor and executive producer Luke del Tredici and is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. Akiva Schaffer is set to direct the pilot, and hopped on the project as an executive producer.
Johnson has a busy 2026 ahead of him, as he debuts three projects. First is “The Sun Never Sets,” also starring Dakota Fanning — his fourth collaboration with Joe Swanberg — set for release at SXSW. He will also star in the Apple TV series “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed,” opposite Tatiana Maslany, and the pickleball comedy “The Dink,” co-starring Mary Steenburgen and Ed Harris, also at Apple. The new comedy would mark his return to a broadcast comedy series regular role for the first time since starring in Fox’s “New Girl” alongside Zooey Deschanel.
The still-untitled comedy series will “continue the proud tradition of Los Angeles private eyes that began with Philip Marlowe and will end with this show,” according to a logline provided by NBC. NBC and Peacock scripted content president Lisa Katz told TheWrap this month that the project would be a complementary offering to “St. Denis Medical,” which was already renewed for Season 3.
“Luke and Dan was a pitch we heard and I made a production commitment immediately based on their vision for it,” Katz said. “It was laugh-out-loud funny, and felt like such a home run for NBC comedy and what’s been [consistently] successful for us.”
