Ellen Pompeo Books Latest Project Beyond Grey’s Anatomy With New Hulu Series Chicks

 

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Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has lined up her next TV project as she continues expanding her career beyond the walls of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Deadline reports that Pompeo has signed on to star in and executive produce a family dramedy for Hulu and 20th Television called Chicks. As of right now, the streamer has only ordered a pilot. Good American Family co-showrunner Katie Robbins and Laura Holstein, who works at Pompeo’s production company Calamity Jane, are also on board as executive producers.

Robbins wrote the script for the Chicks pilot, which centers on estranged half-sisters Chickie (played by Pompeo) and Doreen, who reunite following the death of their father. They get involved in an ever-expanding series of criminal enterprises in Boston as a way to make money. Along the way, the half-siblings grow closer as a family unit, despite the loss of their dad and the fraud they’re committing.

Production on the pilot is expected to get underway in New York this September. Hulu will determine at a later date whether to give Chicks a series order. The idea for Chicks was born out of discussions Pompeo and Robbins had while making Good American Family, the first series that the actor starred in after stepping down as a full-time cast member on Grey’s Anatomy.

The eight-episode Hulu limited series, which Pompeo executive-produced, told the story of married couple Kristine (Pompeo) and Michael Barnett (Mark Duplass) as they went through the process of adopting a girl with dwarfism named Natalie Grace (Imogen Faith Reid). The dynamic of the expanding family changed after Natalie began acting in a strange manner and claimed to be an adult.

Despite being a new creative outlet for Pompeo, critics gave the show mixed reactions and a 50% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Pompeo started working on Good American Family after spending almost two decades playing the titular doctor Meredith Grey on the long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

She’s one of the few remaining original cast members and still appears in some episodes every season. In Grey’s Anatomy season 22, which wrapped in May, Meredith and Nick got engaged after the latter faced a major injury from a bridge collapse.

Chicks isn’t the only project on Pompeo’s plate right now. She’s also one of the executive producers of an upcoming Grey’s Anatomy spinoff that will take place in Texas. Not much is known about the new series yet, with casting announcements and other details being revealed in the coming months. ABC will debut the untitled spinoff in midseason.