Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are taking the beloved family game night to a new extreme. The couple is teaming up, and competing against one another, in NBC‘s new one-hour game show, Family Game Fight, the network announced Wednesday, giving the series a 10-episode series pick-up.
According to the network, Bell and Shepard will serve as both hosts and competitors on the series, which does not yet have a premiere date and will mark the first time the married couple has teamed up for a TV project. During each one-hour episode, Family Game Fight will find the couple splitting up to be “adopted” into a family of four. Those families will then compete “in a series of insanely fun games with a big cash prize up for grabs.” The series, NBC says, was inspired by the couple’s antics on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
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The show will hold special importance for the couple, who married in 2013 and share daughters Delta and Lincoln, as game nights have been a staple of their relationship. Bell revealed that for one of their first dates, she invited her now-husband over for a game night with a few of her friends, and the rest is history.
“He said he fell in love with me there because I was a very tiny person bossing everyone around. I fell in love with him too because he’s a very large person who could boss everyone around, but chooses not to. I’m so excited to host Family Game Fight and play all day with my best friend,” Bell said, with Shepard adding, “Kristen is my favorite human to work with. She’s the most consistently funny, playful and joyful scene partner I’ve ever had. She’s also incredibly fun to look at.”
In a statement, Jenny Groom Executive Vice President of Unscripted Content for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming said the network is “thrilled” to be joining forces with the couple “to host a game show for the first time.” Groom said Bell and Shepard’s “energy is infectious, their comedic sensibility comes so naturally, and their transparency about their relationship is what makes them so relatable and loveable” and Family Game Fight was “born out of the true competitive, yet playful and loving spirit Dax and Kristen have towards each other.” Mike Darnell, President Warner Bros. Unscripted Television, added that the couple is “simply magnetic when they’re on screen,” describing them as “surprisingly competitive in this fast-moving family competition.”
