Fintech came first
Prime Video has given a series order to New Money, a half-hour comedy created, written by and starring Mekki Leeper. Deadline first reported the order on September 24, with TheWrap also detailing the production and creative team.
The project grew out of Fintech, a pilot Leeper created, directed and self-financed before taking it to buyers. That origin separates New Money from a conventional script sale: Leeper had already built a produced version of the idea before Prime Video committed to a full series.
Rob Mac, through More Better, was attached to that pilot as an executive producer and remains involved in New Money. Jackie Cohn, 3 Arts Entertainment's Nick Frenkel and Mosaic's Olivia Doud also executive produce.
Leeper is not simply the lead
Leeper will star, write and serve as co-showrunner, making New Money a much broader creative assignment than his existing acting work. He currently plays Matt on NBC's St. Denis Medical and previously combined acting and writing duties on Jury Duty.
Joe Mande will co-showrun the series and executive produce. His television writing and producing credits include Hacks, The Good Place, Parks and Recreation and Running Point, giving the project an experienced comedy writer alongside Leeper as the original creator.
The arrangement also preserves the authorial line connecting the finished series to the independently made pilot. Prime Video is not replacing the creator who built the proof of concept; Leeper remains responsible for the show in front of the camera and behind it.
A workplace comedy with more capital than competence
New Money is built as an ensemble workplace comedy around wealth, investment and a group of people whose confidence significantly exceeds their ability. Its central figure is a trust-fund heir who has reinvented himself as a self-declared mogul.
He runs New Money Worldwide with a collection of similarly misguided employees. The official description calls it Southern California's least successful venture capital firm, where the team keeps putting money into questionable opportunities while trying to generate dramatically more of it.
The material is also described more broadly as taking place in the morally dubious world of private equity. The slight difference in financial terminology is part of the language currently surrounding the series; what is clear is that investment culture, inherited wealth and professional delusion form the comic setting.
A series order, but no release date yet
Amazon MGM Studios is producing the show. Peter Friedlander, the studio's Head of Global Television, publicly confirmed the company's enthusiasm for the combination of Leeper and Mande when the series order was announced.
What has not been announced is just as important. The reports accompanying the order do not provide a Prime Video premiere date, and the wider cast beyond Leeper has not yet been unveiled.
The production therefore has a clear status but not a public timetable. New Money is no longer merely the independently financed Fintech pilot or a project being shopped around Hollywood: it has a Prime Video series order and Amazon MGM Studios behind it. The next unanswered questions concern who joins Leeper on screen and when the show reaches the service.
