More than five years into building its unscripted business, Andrea and Mitch Gabourie’s Forté Entertainment is looking to expand into scripted content with a new half-hour comedy series, Zombie Kings, executive produced by late genre filmmaking legend George A. Romero.

After being introduced to Romero through a mutual friend in 2015, the Forté principals later approached him on “a whim and a prayer” to discuss their idea for a scripted comedy set in a world of fly-by-night filmmakers, shady dealmakers and low-budget movie making.

Mitch Gabourie, who created the project alongside Aubrey Singer, told Playback Daily that Romero “always saw this world as ripe for parody” and was tickled by the show’s concept. Zombie Kings is described as “a workplace comedy which takes place in a low budget, so-bad-they’re-good B-movie production house.”

Romero, who is best known for creating the ground-breaking zombie franchise that included Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, wrote a script for the show and had been set to take a hands-on role in its production until his death in summer 2017.

Given his belief in the project, Forté signed an agreement with Romero’s estate for his posthumous attachment to the project in the capacity of executive producer. The prodco is currently in discussion with a number of showrunners and talent as it packages the project, with the goal of entering production in 2021.

While the project is the first scripted TV project that Forté is taking out to broadcasters, it is by no means a one-off. Since the production company was launched in the fall of 2015, the strategy had always been to build a foundation in the factual arena before branching into scripted, according to Andrea Gabourie.

“Unscripted and kids was really the biggest focus for us when we started Forté. Those tend to be faster projects to get up and get running, so focusing on those genres was a great way to establish the business, while in the background we were nurturing a number of scripted projects,” she said.

In addition, the company is branching into the world of feature film. Its in-development titles include Stickup Men, about the exploits of the Stopwatch Gang, a group of infamous 1970s bank robbers; and Bear Season, coproduced with J. Todd Harris, whose exec producer credits include Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of Chicago Seven. In addition, the company is in development on a feature documentary titled Blue Rodeo – Like At The Kee.

Forté’s unscripted credits include Snack Attack (Food Network U.S.), fashion competition series Stitched (Slice/Corus Studios), International Emmy-award-winning kids’ reality series Snapshots (CBC Kids), format adaptation Hello Goodbye (CBC), Life Story Project (OWN) and Let’s Get Hitched (CBC).