Gina Torres' "Suits" Spin-off Gets Title: "Second City"

[JamesG]

"Suits" Spin-off Centered on Gina Torres' Jessica Eyed at USA Network
by Michael Ausiello
February 22, 2017


The long arm of the law is reaching back out to Gina Torres.

TVLine has learned exclusively that a "Suits" spin-off centered on former cast member Torres — whose fan-favorite character Jessica Pearson was written out of the legal drama last September — is quietly being developed.



When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Universal Cable Productions (the studio behind Suits) would neither confirm nor denied the spin-off buzz, telling TVLine:

“The Suits team is currently focused on the remaining episodes of Season 6 and what’s next for the characters when they return in Season 7.”







Torres’ exit from the USA Network drama last fall was, by all accounts, extremely amicable. At the time, the actress explained that her decision to move on was purely a geographical one; even though "Suits" is set in New York, it shoots in Toronto, and Torres said it was “necessary to get back to my life [in Los Angeles] and all the very important things that being on location in Toronto made very difficult to manage.”

Shortly thereafter, Torres joined the cast of ABC’s L.A.-based "The Catch" in a one-year deal.



It’s not clear where the potential Jessica-centric offshoot would be set, but when last we saw her she was heading to Chicago to start a new life with her ex Malone (DB Woodside, who’s now on Fox’s "Lucifer").

“I don’t believe for one second it’s the last we’ll see of Jessica Pearson,” Torres said back in September. “Not. For. One. Second. And don’t you either.”

http://tvline.com/2017/02/22/suits-s...a-usa-network/

[Chocolate Moose]

She's played a lawyer before, over the years. She's GOOD !!!

[robyrob]

I don't understand; I thought USA was committed to phasing out all of its scripted shows in favor of crappy low-rent reality shows?

[JamesG]

Gina Torres Closes Deal To Star & Produce "Suits" Spin-off
by Nellie Andreeva
March 1, 2017


It’s on! Former "Suits" co-star Gina Torres has closed a deal with the studio behind the hit USA legal drama series, Universal Cable Prods., to headline and produce a potential spinoff series centered on her "Suits" character, uber attorney and office style icon Jessica Pearson.

The project will be shepherded by "Suits" creator/showrunner Aaron Korsh, whose deal is still being worked out. The new series, which is in very early stages of development, is based on an idea Torres brought to UCP, which is ran by Jeff Wachtel. There has been a lot of enthusiasm for the project, with Torres’ deal closing quickly as UCP stepped up while Torres was fielding offers for broadcast pilots.

“I’m beyond grateful for this opportunity and the level of confidence Bonnie Hammer, Jeff Wachtel and everyone at UCP have in me and the potential of this project,” Torres said in a statement to Deadline. “Can’t wait to get started.”





Korsh will serve as an executive producer and showrunner on the spin-off series, shepherding it alongside his showrunner duties on "Suits".

“Gina had the idea and went to the studio. She pitched an idea of what happens if we follow Jessica into the future a little bit,” Korsh told Deadline. “She has a specific take on it that we’re still mulling over right now. They were excited about it, I was excited about it, and we decided to move forward with thinking about what it is.”





Torres’ deal comes as Jessica Pearson made a surprise return to "Suits" in the final minutes of tonight’s Season 6 finale. This was Torres’ first time back on the show since exiting as a series regular in the Season 6 summer finale in September.

Korsh and Torres had stayed in touch since she left the show, going out to lunch and dinner now and then. The new project coming together was serendipitous — as Torres was pitching a Jessica Pearson series to the studio, Korsh was thinking about the character.

“I think we were editing either Episode 15 or 16, and sometimes I want to go back and look at an old episode to look at a piece of music,” he said. “We were doing that and whatever the scene was, we pulled it up. It was a shot of Jessica from last year, and I was just like, ‘Man I miss Jessica so much.'”





Korsh quickly came on board the potential spin-off, which he would be writing by himself or with another writer. It is unclear yet whether the potential offshoot would be worked into the story of the upcoming seventh season of "Suits" or it will be developed completely on its own .

“Jessica Pearson is an iconic character in my mind and hopefully in the public’s mind,” he said. “Gina Torres is a consummate professional both as an actress and brilliant human being, and I think she’s emerging as s a force as a producer. So when we talked about it, we got very excited about it — both from a creative possibility standpoint and just working with Gina. She’s just such a pleasure to work with, so though it is in its early stages, I’m very excited because I love Gina and I love Jessica.”





Korsh originally wanted to kill off Jessica Pearson in the Season 6 summer finale, giving the character a dramatic ending, but changed the storyline upon objections from the network. Instead, after taking up a pro-bono case, Jessica ended up deciding to go to Chicago to be with her love, Jeff (D.B. Woodside).

“At the time there was no thought in my head of planting any sort of spinoff,” Korsh said. “The Chicago thing sort of just emanated. When she originally wanted to become a lawyer, this wasn’t the lawyer necessarily that she wanted to be, and the pro-bono case reawakens this fire in her. Then we thought, let’s bring Jeff back. He’s going to move to Chicago and inspire her to go there and ride off into the sunset.”





When Jessica reappeared in tonight’s Season 6 finale to help Mike clinch a crucial vote and finally become a lawyer, she was still living in Chicago though there was no mention of Jeff. (Woodside is a series regular on Fox’s Lucifer, which has been renewed for next season.)

Will Jessica stay in Chicago for her own series? “Once you start really digging in creatively on something, you never know where it’s going to lead. So since we haven’t dug in really creatively yet, it could lead anywhere, but if I were a betting man, I would probably say it will still be Chicago,” Korsh said.





Torres left the mothership series, which films in Toronto, in large part because it was getting difficult for her to be away for so long from her family, who are based in Los Angeles. While she had been working primarily in Los Angeles since, she was said to be willing to film elsewhere for the right project.

As for Jessica possibly popping up on season 7 of "Suits", “I would never count her out is what I would say,” Korsh said. “We don’t have specific plans but she’s obviously always a near and dear character of the show and if opportunities arise, we would of course love to bring her back.”

http://deadline.com/2017/03/gina-tor...ff-1202031857/

[JamesG]

"Suits" Spin-off Starring Gina Torres to be Introduced in "Suits" Season 7 Finale, Will Be about Chicago Politics
by Nellie Andreeva
August 16, 2017


The upcoming Season 7 finale of USA Network’s "Suits" will serve as a backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off starring Gina Torres and centered around her "Suits" character, the powerhouse lawyer Jessica Pearson.

The offshoot, which, unlike the mothership series won’t be a legal drama but set in the world of Chicago politics, hails from Universal Cable Prods. The pilot will be written and executive produced by "Suits" creator and executive producer Aaron Korsh and executive producer Daniel Arkin, and will be directed by "Suits" alum Anton Cropper (House of Lies).

"Suits" executive producers Doug Liman, David Bartis and Gene Klein of Hypnotic will also serve as executive producers on the spin-off.






In the Season 7 finale, which will air in the first quarter of 2018, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman), Donna Paulsen (Sarah Rafferty) and Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle) with reunite with their old boss and friend Pearson as she adjusts to her new life in the Windy City.

When she is forced to enter the dirty world of Chicago politics, Pearson must rely on her legal wits and valiant relationships from Pearson Specter Litt to navigate this unknown territory.





“The powerhouse character of Jessica Pearson, expertly brought to life by the incomparable Gina Torres, has won the hearts of television fans everywhere,” said Chris McCumber, President, Entertainment Networks, NBCU Cable Entertainment.

Added Jeff Wachtel, Chief Content Officer, NBCU Cable Entertainment, and President, UCP. “We felt we owed it to the audience – and ourselves! – to follow her journey beyond the original show.”





Preliminary casting search has begun for actors to play three new characters that will be featured in the backdoor pilot with the goal of them continuing on the spin-off series. (The original series’ casting director, Bonnie Zane, will also be casting the spin-off.)

Korsh did not have details about the characters because the "Suits" finale/spin-off pilot has not been written yet; he and Arkin are slated to start writing the episode in a few days.





What Korsh could reveal is that “Jessica is going to get in a tangle and a tussle with some Chicago politics players. They will be of different levels, from the Mayor on down, and maybe not all will be directly involved in politics, we may have a real estate developer or someone of that type, and some power brokers within the city and maybe further a little down the rung in that world. As we go though the spinoff episode, at the end hopefully you’ll have a great idea of what her future is moving forward and who’s a potential ally and who’s a potential enemy in her world.”

There had been rumblings that the new lawyer character introduced on "Suits" this season, which is played by Dulé Hill, may migrate to the spinoff, though there has been no decision on that yet.









Torres, an original "Suits" cast member, exited the series as a series regular in the Season 6 summer finale last September. The departure stemmed from a personal request by the actress who wanted to spend more time with her family in Los Angeles.

But when she’d settled back in Los Angeles last fall as everybody else went back to work, “I thought, ‘I miss her, what would she be doing, what’s going on’,” Torres said about Jessica. She does not regret her decision to leave the show “at all, and even less so now.”

“It really helped to mother this notion of a life beyond Suits for Jessica,” Torres said.





She pitched to UCP and Korsh an idea for a Jessica-centered spin-off that would “have her move away from the world of law and into the world of politics. Especially given the climate now, I thought that was certainly a timely concept. And with this woman, whom you’ve seen for six seasons walk a razor-thin line between legal, not so legal, good, bad, whatever she had to do to survive and save her firm, and she did it quite brilliantly, I think those are qualities that lend themselves to good storytelling.”

Additionally, “moving into politics was a way of differentiating the show from Suits,” Torres said. “I didn’t want it to be Suits 2, I wanted it to be its own entity, and so moving it away from a glossy attorney show, I wanted it to be darker, a little more reality-based, a little grittier and to reflect what it is that we are going though in the country.”

Korsh recollected again how it was network executives that helped make the spinoff possible by vetoing his original idea how to write Jessica off the mothership series. “We creatively wanted to create a big bang for Suits. maybe have Jessica die and thank god we didn’t do that, I’m very grateful to all,” he said.





While Torres’ original spin-off idea was slightly different, “the core of it I thought was fantastic,” Korsh said. Additionally, “Gina was on the show for a number of years, and obviously everyone knows she is an amazing actress but not only that; Gina is the most professional person I’ve ever worked with; she always approaches everything from the standpoint of making it as good as it can possibly be. When people behave that way, you always want to be in business with them.”

Korsh quickly decided to get on board the spin-off. And “once I decided to do it, my first thought was to involve Daniel Arkin who is my longtime number two on Suits.”









Torres made a surprising return to "Suits" in the season six finale last spring. Her character has appeared multiple times this season and is expected to continue to do so, culminating with the season finale that will introduce the spinoff.

While Jessica’s exact line of work has not been addressed on "Suits" this season, she has not transitioned to politics just yet, Korsh said. “Within the confines of the show, she left to go to work in Chicago to continue to be a lawyer but in a different capacity, not be a corporate layer anymore but try to help people and do mainly pro bono work. From our perspective, we haven’t seen that, but that’s what in my mind she’s been doing in Chicago. We will get a little bit better idea of what she’s doing there but she has not yet made that transition, that’s what the spinoff episode does, introduces her new life.”





Using a season finale of "Suits" to usher in a spin-off is tricky, Korsh admits.

“The challenge of the spin-off is to make it work both as a fresh new episode that launches a series and to make it work as an episode of Suits. So we try to create a situation where Harvey is torn between two worlds, between helping Jessica with the problem she has in Chicago and his own law firm he’s inherited from her, and he’s got to choose between helping Jessica and helping his own firm.

The idea is, Harvey would go to Jessica’s aid, battling against political forces in Chicago, and the people on Suits would all step up and try and help Harvey with the situation he is in back home. We will be bouncing back and forth between Chicago and New York.”





Like Torres, Korsh too did not want to do a show about Jessica as a lawyer in Chicago.

“I thought that would be a little bit too similar to Suits, I thought that we would be doing the same show again, and I wasn’t interested in that. If she goes into a new field, she is still just as intelligent and powerful and commanding and strategic as she always has been, but it’s a new world for her so it allows you to see a different side of her, it allows her to have a learning curve and allows us to introduce different tones and dynamics and just to see new, different things.”





Asked about possible parallels to CBS’ "The Good Wife", which featured a storyline of a female Chicago attorney, Alicia Florrick, getting involved in local politics as she ran for State’s Attorney, Korsh said.

“Though I loved The Good Wife, I never saw that storyline, so I can’t answer other than say that both shows are very personal and specific to their characters and obviously Jessica Pearson and Alicia Florrick are not the same.”

http://deadline.com/2017/08/suits-sp...cs-1202147518/

[JamesG]

"Suits" Spin-off Starring Gina Torres Picked Up to Series at USA Network
by Nellie Andreeva
March 8, 2018


USA Network’s "Suits" is officially a franchise with two shows. The network has given a series order to a spin-off from the long-running legal drama, which is toplined by the mothership series’ alumna Gina Torres and centers on her character, powerhouse lawyer Jessica Pearson, as she enters the dirty world of Chicago politics.

“Gina’s portrayal of Jessica Pearson as one of television’s strongest, most successful businesswomen has made a huge impact with fans,” said Chris McCumber, President, Entertainment Networks, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. “We can’t wait to explore this next chapter in the Suits legacy – and a brand new world for Jessica.”





“It was an extraordinary pleasure working with Gina on Suits for six years. Beyond her undeniable talent, she is an incredible partner and collaborator, and I always hoped we would work together again,” said "Suits" creator Aaron Korsh.

“I am sincerely grateful to USA and UCP for giving Dan Arkin, my producing partners at Hypnotic and me the opportunity to continue Jessica Pearson’s journey in this new series that will encapsulate all that our fans love about her and Suits – but with its own distinct story that will be unique to the franchise.”





“What’s wonderful about USA is how they have brought all this together and have really embraced me not just an an actress but also as a producer,” Torres said, noting the big responsibility the team of the spin-off is taking on.

“The audience that is watching holds us to a golden standard that we hope to meet and, in our wildest dreams, maybe push the envelope up. Fans of Suits have come to know Jessica as this confident kick-ass attorney who is always five steps ahead of everyone but that’s only 5-10% of the entirety of this woman.What is wonderful is that the audience will be treated to not just the great television expected of Suits but also peek into Jessica’s world.”

Torres called the backdoor pilot “a setup, a recipe not just for entertaining but interesting, thought-provoking television. We want to talk today’s topics and really go in and do some commentary and entertain at the same time.”

http://deadline.com/2018/03/suits-sp...rk-1202317329/

[Chocolate Moose]

I am thrilled! Thank you for posting !!!!

[JamesG]

Gina Torres' "Suits" Spin-off Gets Title
by Denise Petski
May 14, 2018


USA’s upcoming "Suits" spin-off now has a title — "Second City".

The offshoot of the long-running legal drama is toplined by the mothership series’ alumna Gina Torres and centers on her character, powerhouse lawyer Jessica Pearson, as she enters the dirty world of Chicago politics.

Torres announced the title today at NBCU's upfront presentation in Manhattan, while introducing footage from the recent "Suits" series finale which served as a backdoor pilot for the spin-off.

http://deadline.com/2018/05/suits-sp...sa-1202390479/

[Chocolate Moose]

I can't wait! thank you!