It seems a spin-off of How I Met Your Mother is in development once again. After 2014’s failed How I Met Your Dad, Deadline is reporting the concept is being revived as How I Met Your Father with This Is Us writers and producers Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger heading the new project.
The series will be a departure from How I Met Your Mother focusing on an entirely new cast of characters. The only similarity between the shows will be the basic story premise of a mother telling the story – presumably to her children – of how she met their father. Original series creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays will also serve as executive producers of How I Met Your Father, but whether or not they will be involved in a more extensive role is unknown.
Thomas and Bays were originally set to showrun How I Met Your Dad with Emily Spivey, going so far as to writing and filming a pilot with Greta Gerwig as the central character just as How I Met Your Mother was ending its nine season run. Given HIMYM‘s huge popularity, it was a big shock that CBS decided not to pick it up for a series order during the upfronts that year, though HIMYM‘s controversial series finale may have had something to do with that.
Right now there is no script for How I Met Your Father, but production company 20th TV is apparently looking internally to have a spec script written. There’s no word on when or even if it will go on the market either; the series doesn’t necessarily have to go to CBS since it doesn’t follow any of the original characters, leaving it possible that another network could pick it up.
Originally published December 15, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
