page_title: New Girl
section_title: Conception
hierarchical_section_title: New Girl / Production / Conception
caption_attribution_description: Dave Finkel, Brett Baer, Elizabeth Meriwether, Zooey Deschanel
context_page_description: New Girl is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether for the Fox Broadcasting Company that originally aired between 2011 and 2018. Under the working title Chicks & Dicks, the series revolves around a quirky teacher, Jess, after she moves into a Los Angeles loft with three men, Nick, Schmidt, and Winston; Jess' best friend Cece is also part of the series. The show combines comedy and drama elements as the characters, who are in their early thirties, deal with maturing relationships and career choices. New Girl is a joint production between Elizabeth Meriwether Pictures and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television.
  Produced in Los Angeles as a single-camera comedy, New Girl is an ensemble show aimed at a general audience. Most episodes are anchored around Jess, who, according to series creator Meriwether, would have played a side character on other shows. The show's first marketing push was on Zooey Deschanel and the promotional tagline "Simply Adorkable". The producers rejected early criticism of Jess's girlishness, insisting that Jess was not meant to be emblematic of all women.
context_section_description: 20th Century Fox Television first approached playwright Elizabeth Meriwether in 2008 to develop a pilot that was eventually shelved. After Meriwether's success with the 2011 romantic comedy film  No Strings Attached, 20th Century Fox approached her once more, and she pitched an idea for a TV sitcom about an "offbeat girl moving in with three single guys", inspired by her experience of "bouncing from Craigslist sublet to Craigslist sublet, for four years in L.A." when she was in her twenties. This show was initially called Chicks and Dicks, and two of the characters were already similar to the final characters of Jess and Schmidt. The initial idea was a Will & Grace-style comedy inspired by Meriwether's close friendship with a guy after their exes started dating each other. The FOX network liked the script and pursued Zooey Deschanel for the role of Jess, to whose story Meriwether felt most connected. As the script developed, the plot moved on from being about the sexual endeavors of the roommates and became more socially oriented, so the title was changed to New Girl.
  As Fox greenlit the show in 2011 and ordered an initial 13 episodes, Meriwether approached Jake Kasdan, whom she admired for his work on Freaks and Geeks blending comedy and emotion, to shoot the pilot and subsequent episodes. 30 Rock's Brett Baer and Dave Finkel became co-showrunners, although Meriwether is still regarded as the voice behind New Girl. According to The New Republic, Kasdan "helped develop the feel of the show, which is lit more darkly and cinematically than the average sitcom", and Meriwether found the show working best "when you're laughing, but you're a little sad about it". The show attempts to combine "comedy and drama as the five characters explore the difficulties of the decade between 30 and 40, which is when many people take their biggest steps toward maturity" in regards to relationships and careers, which, unlike Friends, is giving the show a "built-in biological clock". Kasdan said that "Their lives are moving forward, [but] they're still trying to hang on to some kind of crazy youth" although he does not "want them ever to seem pathetic."
  Screenwriters Stephanie Counts and Shari Gold filed an 87-page lawsuit in January 2014, claiming that New Girl was based on their 2006 script for a proposed television series. There were a number of similarities, including the number of roommates, similar backgrounds, appearance, and ethnicity.  Additionally, Jess's long term partner in the New Girl pilot had the same name (Spencer) and they broke up for similar reasons (partner's infidelity).  Fox and talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC responded in April 2014 that in their view, the two works were not substantially similar and that any other similarities stemmed from non-protectable ideas, or scenes a faire. Thus, they pleaded that the judge dismiss the case.  The case was dismissed with leave to amend in 2014.  An amended complaint was filed in 2014 and decided by summary judgment against Counts and Gold on December 30, 2015.  In March 2016, Counts and Gold were ordered to pay approximately $800,000 in attorney's fees.
caption: Executive producers Dave Finkel, Brett Baer, Elizabeth Meriwether and producer/actress Zooey Deschanel at Paley Fest 2012.
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