Peacock takes Ted to series

American comedy Ted

NBCUniversal-owned US streamer Peacock has given a straight-to-series order to a serialised version of Seth MacFarlane’s film Ted.

The series is based on the Universal Pictures and MRC Film’s 2012 movie, which starred Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett, whose childhood wish to bring his teddy bear Ted (MacFarlane) to life came true but which then proves problematic in his adult life and relationships.

Also starring Mila Kunis and Joel McHale, the film was MacFarlane’s feature-length directorial debut and was the 12th highest-grossing film of 2012. A sequel, Ted 2, was released in 2015 and together the two films have grossed more than US$750m worldwide.

MacFarlane is currently in negotiations to reprise the voice of Ted for the series, which will be produced by UCP and MRC Television.

Executive producers are MacFarlane and Erica Huggins for Fuzzy Door, the prodco founded by MacFarlane in 1998 and behind productions such as animated series Family Guy and American Dad!.

It is the second series order since MacFarlane and Fuzzy Door signed an overall five-year development deal reportedly worth US$200m with Peacock-parent NBCUniversal in 2020.

The first project to emerge from the partnership is the commission of science series The End is Nye, hosted by American mechanical engineer Bill Nye, earlier this year.