You can take the villain out of the reality TV show, but looks like Spencer Pratt will always return to his The Hills roots one way or another.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Pratt has signed up for an unscripted series following his bid to be the 44th Mayor of Los Angeles. Deadline can confirm that production has already started with initial footage in the can, with the still-untitled Prattfest kicking into full gear over the next several days.
The latest reality TV venture from the man who titled his recent memoir The Guy You Love to Hate is to be produced by Santa Monica’s Boardwalk Pictures. The company, run by WME-repped producer-director Andrew Fried, certainly has the chops for the Pratt mission after having been involved with the likes of Netflix’s AKA Charlie Sheen and FX’s Ryan Reynolds- and Rob Mac-led Welcome to Wrexham.
Neither the incendiary Pratt — who is currently second in the polls behind incumbent Karen Bass for L.A. City Hall’s top job — nor Boardwalk responded to Deadline’s request for comment on the new show.
However, as first reported by TMZ (which has been all over Pratt the past week as his political fortunes have risen), the show intends to follow the candidate all the way to the June 2 primary and on to the November election if Pratt qualifies for one of the top two spots in a mayoral run-off — which seems almost assured at this point. Whether or not the show would follow Pratt into the Mayor’s office in the chance the Donald Trump fan actually won in the heavily Democratic City of Angels is unclear, individuals close to the situation tell me.
“It’s both familiar and uncharted territory, isn’t it?” a production source said. “That’s part of Spencer and [wife] Heidi [Montag]’s appeal, right?”
To that, while fellow Hills alum and Santa Barbara resident Montag has not been a public part of her husband’s campaign, she is set to be a big part of the show.
Coming off a well-attended fundraiser hosted by David Foster and Katharine McPhee this week and an attention-getting performance in last week’s debate against Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman, Pratt’s outsider status, media savvy and anger over losing his home to last year’s horrific Palisades wildfire reminds more than a few observers of a certain ex-Apprentice host’s rise to the nation’s highest office.
Besides his backing of ICE and opposition to sanctuary cities and states, as well as tendency to over-emphasize certain key points (he doesn’t presently live in a trailer on the husk of his old house, but rather the Hotel Bel-Air), Pratt has other similarities to Trump in addition to the reality TV connection.
Like the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of Hillary Clinton in 2016 to prop up Trump in the belief he would be an easy adversary, Bass’ campaign has been accused by Raman and others of tacitly supporting Pratt in the aim of crushing the TV villain at the polls in the fall. Certainly like Trump in his first race for the presidency, Pratt is upping his brand (and book sales) in the process of his electoral pursuits.
Either way it goes in the end, to paraphrase Pratt’s memoir, it could be “fun to watch.”
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