Mike Darnell On ‘The World’s Best’: “No Super Bowl Overtime, Please”

Mike Darnell hopes that there’s no repeat of Super Bowl LI when the New England Patriots came back to beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime as he prepares to launch The World’s Best.

The James Corden-fronted reality series has the post Super Bowl slot on CBS and Darnell admitted that he is nervous. “First of all, I’m going to be a wreck that night. I’ve never been that interested in football, I am this year. I know who’s in, I don’t want an overtime game, I didn’t want two LA teams, I thought that was going to be a disaster, I don’t want a blowout, I’m out of my mind. If we get off on time, we should get a great number and it’s all about how much can you hold from that number,” he told Deadline.

He added that non-scripted shows have held up well after the big game over the last 15 years.

“I’m counting on that. It has a very broad feel and it’s very easy to watch, it’s family so knock on wood, when we come to Wednesdays, we’ll hold a decent number, I don’t want to guess but if we keep a quarter of it, we’ll do quite well.”

The World’s Best, which has judges Drew Barrymore, Faith Hill and RuPaul Charles and features 50 of the world’s most accomplished experts from every field of entertainment, launches in an 8pm slot on Wednesday February 6 before moving to 9pm on February 20.

Warner Bros. Unscripted and Alternative Television President Darnell created the show, which is co-produced with Fulwell 73 Productions, something he said that was done out of necessity as he’s no longer a buyer with access to all international formats. “It’s been eight years since The Voice, there’s been many tries over the world and nothing has popped. The Masked Singer will probably do well around the world but not sure at what scale. It used to be England, then it was Holland, then Israel and now it’s Asia, so of course we look everywhere. But now I’m not a buyer, I’m a seller, so I don’t have access to every idea so some of it is necessity, what can we do here. I usually try and take a lane no one else is taking,” he said.

The show is exec produced by Darnell, Corden, Mark Burnett, Ben Winston, Brooke Karzen, Dan Sacks, Alison Holloway, James Breen and Barry Poznick.

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