Masi Oka knows a thing or two about learning English as a second language having been born in Tokyo and moving to the U.S. at age 6. The Heroes and Hawaii Five-0 star would be able to share his and his family’s experience in ESL, a comedy project that has been set up at Fox with Oka and A To Z creator Ben Queen executive producing. It is about the students and teacher in a class on English as a second language.
Oka conceived ESL with UK-born writer Zak Shaikh (Sullivan & Son), who is of Pakistani and Indian descent. Shaikh will write the script from a story he is co-writing with Oka and will co-executive produce. Warner Bros TV, where Queen is under an overall deal, is the studio.
Queen is writing/executive producing DC/WBTV comedy Powerless, which has a pilot production commitment at NBC. He is repped by UTA, Chad Snopeck and Offer Weber Dern. Oka, who next will be seen in NBC’s event series Heroes Reborn, is repped by UTA, Luber Roklin and Ziffren Brittenham. Shaikh is with Luber Roklin, Paradigm and Jackiway Tyerman.
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