Lisa McGee Coming To America: FX & 20th TV Land ‘Wildwood’ Comedy From ‘Derry Girls’ Creator Set In New Jersey

EXCLUSIVE: In a very competitive situation, 20th Television an FX have won Wildwood, the latest project from BAFTA Award-winning Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee — and her first set outside of the UK.

A spiritual successor to Derry Girls, which is about a group of teen Irish schoolgirls in the mid-1990s, Wildwood is set in the summer of 2000 and follows a group of Irish college girls who descend on the neon playground that is Wildwood, New Jersey. They’ve no money, no visas, no plan, no clue.

The comedy has been put into development, with McGee as creator and executive producer.

McGee has been on Carolyn Cassidy’s wish list of creators to work with for awhile, and 20th Television’s EVP of Development is credited with pursuing the Irish TV writer-playwright and helping get Wildwood for the studio, with FX as the network partner.

McGee’s semi-autobiographical 2018 series Derry Girls marked Channel 4’s biggest comedy launch since 2004. It ran for three seasons and scored Best Comedy wins at the BAFTAs, International Emmys and the Irish Film and Television Awards.

Additionally, McGee curated and wrote an episode of the 2022 BBC anthology series Skint and created/co-created The Deceived for Channel 5, London Rush for Channel 4, Raw for Ireland’s RTÉ, and most recently, How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, which launched on Netflix in February.

McGee has written episodes of C4’s Indian Summers, BBC1/Starz’s The White Queen and BBC3’s BAFTA-winning Being Human. Her plays include Jump!, which was adapted as a 2012 movie, and Girls and Dolls, a Stewart Parker Award Winner. McGee is repped by CAA and United Agents.