According to Variety, Marc Cherry has signed a two-year extension with ABC Studios that could keep Desperate Housewives on the air through 2013. Cherry will be the show's executive producer for an eighth and ninth season.

All of this depends on the show's core cast members. They are only signed to the show for the 2010-11 season, which would be the show's seventh.

In addition to this, Bob Daily, Cherry's top Housewives lieutenant, will also be with the show during "those potential eighth and ninth years."

Daily is going to have a bigger finger in the show as Cherry does more development at the studio. Currently, Cherry is working on a drama that he's writing with Alexandra Cunningham, a Housewives executive producer.

For the other project, Cherry is having Jeffrey Bowen and Hunter Bell write a multicamera comedy about two brothers who are mismatched. One of them is gay and the other one is straight, however they share a gynecological practice.

ABC Entertainment Group's Steve McPherson had this to say about the new deal with Cherry, "For me it's been an amazing collaboration. It's wonderful to know that he'll be around. The new stuff that he's already working on is a huge priority for us."