Little Mosque on the Prairie is about to move up to the broadcasting big league south of the border.
WestWind Pictures, the producers of the CBC Television hit comedy, has signed a deal with Twentieth Century-Fox Television to create an American version of the series. Created by Zarqa Narwaz, Little Mosque follows the lives of a small Muslim community in the fictional Canadian prairie town of Mercy. The intent behind the new deal is to remount the series in a U.S. setting.
“This is an agreement to move forward and create a script and a pilot episode,” says Little Mosque executive producer Mary Darling, who also serves as CEO of WestWind Pictures. “The new version will keep the spirit of the original series. At its heart, it’s really a very sweet show.”
Since launching in 2007, the CBC edition of Little Mosque has been sold to several international markets, including France, Israel, Turkey and Nordic countries. The American series is most likely to surface on U.S. television sometime next year, with the original title intact.
“There are plenty of prairies in the U.S.,” says Darling. “I don’t think they’ll play with the title.”