Ted Danson and Michael Schur Are Making a Nursing Home Spy Comedy

The phrase “nursing home spy comedy” conjures the image of Mike Myers trying to reboot Austin Powers in twenty years, but that descriptor is basically the four-word pitch for the project by sitcom superstar Michael Schur and his Good Place collaborator Ted Danson that is currently in the middle of a heated bidding war among television networks.

According to Deadline, Schur is writing an adaptation of the Oscar-nominated Chilean documentary The Mole Agent, which told the story of an 83-year-old man who was hired by a private investigator to go undercover at a nursing home and expose suspected elder abuse. Schur has re-imagined The Mole Agent as a television comedy starring Danson as a geriatric James Bond, and TV networks and streaming platforms are clamoring to get a piece of it.

Schur, a writer and producer best known for work on shows such as The Office, has set his sights on elder espionage as his newest comedic target. Michael Scarn would be proud.

The original documentary of The Mole Agent made waves in 2020 when it appeared in the nominations of the Academy Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. While the original film was hailed for its compassion and its message about the way societies forget about their vulnerable citizens, Schur’s adaptation will likely lean into the levity of an old man playing secret agent in a nursing home.

With Schur's track record of sitcom success and Danson's delightful performance of Schur's writing in The Good Place, The Mole Agent might end up being Schur's latest must-watch comedy – though I'm not convinced that this isn't all one big ploy to get Danson admitted into an old folks' home.