Jason Ensler To Direct & EP Premiere Of Fox Series ‘Monarch’, NBC Pilot ‘Dangerous Moms’ – Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: Seasoned TV director-producer Jason Ensler has been tapped to direct and executive produce the opening episode of Fox’s straight-to-series country music dynasty drama Monarch, produced by Fox Entertainment, and NBC’s drama pilot Dangerous Moms, from Warner Bros. TV and Universal TV. He is shooting the two pilots back-to-back in Atlanta.
Created and written by Melissa London Hilfers, Monarch is a Texas-sized, multigenerational musical drama about America’s first family of country music. Hilfer exec produces the series with Michael Rauch, who serves as showrunner, Gail Berman and Hend Baghdady alongside Sandbox Entertainment’s Jason Owen.
Written by Janine Sherman Barrois based on the Spanish series Señoras del (h)Ampa, Dangerous Moms is an off-center dark dramedy about four diverse mothers, played by Shanola Hampton, Dascha Polanco, Linda Park and Vanessa Marano, who accidentally kill the queen bee of their school’s PTA during the demonstration of a new high-end food processor. Barrois serves as showrunner and executive produces with Rachel Kaplan, Intrigue Entertainment’s Tariq Jalil and Lucas Carter as well as Arantxa Écija from Mediaset España Comunicación and Santi Botello from Producciones Mandarina SL, who produced the original series.
Ensler is coming off an overall deal at 20th Century Television where he has been executive producing and directing the studio’s Hulu series Live, Victor. Before this, he directed the pilot of the Fox drama The Passage and served as the series’ executive producer/director, a role he also held on the network’s dramas The Exorcist and Red Band Society. Ensler also directed and executive produced the NBC pilot Redliners and directed/executive produced the pilots for The CW’s Cult and Hart Of Dixie and TNT’s Franklin & Bash, where he served as executive producer and director for the first two seasons. He is repped by WME and Lou Pitt from Pitt Group manages.
