Comedy Central inks multi-faceted development deal with Hannibal Buress

Comedy Central is in the Hannibal Buress business. For they announced that they’ve signed Buress to a multi-platform development deal to be a key lynchpin of the brand. The deal works on many different levels including putting Buress on a recurring role for the network’s upcoming Amy Poehler scripted comedy, Broad City. But it doesn’t stop there, they also have a pilot development deal with Buress that he’ll executive produce, his next one-hour stand-up special, as well as nationwide Comedy Central Live stand-up tour. Buress’ stand-up special Animal Furnace was aired and released by Comedy Central just last year.

“Hannibal Buress has one of the great names in comedy,” said Kent Alterman, president of Comedy Central Content Development and Original Programming. “I pray he doesn’t change it.”

“This is really exciting,” said Buress. “I can finally quit my day job at Quiznos. People talk down about the Illuminati a lot but this is proof that membership has its benefits.”

This is a great opportunity for Buress and looks to be the formal version of what Comedy Central’s been doing for the last few years with other comedians such as Daniel Tosh, Anthony Jeselnik, and Amy Schumer. Not only do those comedians have record/DVD deals with CC, they’re given shots to make shows and then rolled out for launch with national touring strength and marketing for the comedian and shows. It harkens to the 360 deal model that’s become relatively popular between record labels and musicians the last few years.

While this is exciting news for Buress, it’s still unclear if he’ll be continuing his role on The Eric Andre Show on [adult swim] which is about to begin its second season. There was also a time Buress inked a deal with Jonah Hill to develop programming. But it’s been a while since that was announced and likely no longer exists.

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