Michael Patrick King to launch Lisa Kudrow's Comeback

Lisa Kudrow is ready for her TV Comeback, this time with HBO and out Sex and the City executive producer Michael Patrick King. The project, dubbed The Comeback, has already received a green light from HBO for a pilot and is now in the casting stage. Kudrow will play a one-time sitcom star who is trying to revive her career. Kudrow and King cowrote the script for Comeback and will executive produce the pilot. Kudrow had been rumored to be teaming up with King on a comedy for HBO, where King has an exclusive deal, but details on the collaboration had been kept under wraps. Former Sex and the City executive producer John Melfi is also closely involved in Comeback, sources said. HBO has been actively pursuing new comedy projects in the wake of the Sex and the City series finale this spring. After shepherding Sex and the City through its highly successful, Emmy-winning run, multihyphenate King's next move has been closely watched by the industry. Kudrow, whose 10-year stint on NBC's Friends as ditzy but street-smart Phoebe earned her an Emmy in 1998, has been active behind the scenes as a producer through Is or Isn't Entertainment, her Warner Bros. TV-based company with out producing partner Dan Bucatinsky (All Over the Guy). This past development season, the company produced two pilots, a comedy for CBS and a drama for UPN. It also produced Picking Up and Dropping Off, a romantic comedy telefilm for ABC Family. Before his tenure at the helm of Sex and the City, King worked on such series as CBS's Cybill and Murphy Brown.