Process Media develops Wreckless series based on David Giffels’ memoir

New York-based production company Process Media has acquired the rights to develop David Giffels’ memoir into a half-hour episodic comedy series.

Process will partner with Brillstein Entertainment Partners on Wreckless, which has been created by writer and director Lee Kirk and author, essayist and journalist Giffels, based on the latter’s book All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House.

Described as a love letter to family and life in the Rust Belt, the show has Steve Basilone attached as showrunner while Tim Perell, president of Process, will executive produce alongside Basilone and Brad Petrigala, manager/producer at Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

The memoir, published in 2008, was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Best Summer Reads list and follows Giffels and his wife Gina after they impulsively bought a condemned mansion in Akron, Ohio, and try to turn it into a home.

Giffels, who has also been a contributing scriptwriter for MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head, said: “It’s a crazy love story filled with angry raccoons, flying chainsaws and collapsing floors.”

Kirk added: “In making the audacious and naive attempt to renovate a crumbling mansion while living in it, David and Gina inadvertently provided us all the ingredients for a great television show.”

Basilone, who served as co-executive producer on ABC’s The Goldbergs for six seasons, added: “The story is incredibly funny, sweet and universal in how it shines a light on things like how absolutely ridiculous the housing market is, and how we’re all just so desperate for a little bit of hope right now.”

Perell said: “I couldn’t put this book down when I read it. It has the construct of The Money Pit with the razor-sharp relationship humour of Catastrophe and all the heart of Ted Lasso.”