Spirit Digital Preps New Comedy Series

LOS ANGELES: Spirit Digital Media, a digital-content company backed by Content Media Corporation, is developing a TV comedy series inspired by an autobiographical feature from quarterly magazine Slake about an aspiring actor turned drug-runner who landed up in a federal prison.

Spirit Digital Media, founded by ex-Endemol executive Peter Cowley, has secured the rights to the award-winning magazine feature "Ballad of the Trunk Monkey Bandit" and is developing a TV series as well as a long-form book. Penned by David Henry Schneider, the article was named Best Magazine Feature for 2010 at the Los Angeles Press Club Journalism Awards. It focuses on how Schneider got into drug trafficking and money laundering and eventually landed in federal prison. The show, Club Fed, will be based on his experiences in a white collar prison camp.

“David’s perspective on being in a ‘camp for criminals’ is hilarious and tragic," said Zev Suissa, creative director at Spirit. "The material is a fascinating insight into white collar prisons in the way M*A*S*H* explored combat hospitals—we are certain that this will have broad appeal across all media platforms.”

Schneider added, “Even though spending time in federal prison was a terrible thing, I now know how people like Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff spent their days behind bars. The levity of the situation was undeniable and Spirit has been greatly supportive to embrace the material and this sensibility.”