Sony Pictures Conjuring Up ‘Bewitched’ Movie Based On Classic TV Series

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has set a movie based on Bewitched, the classic TV series that starred Elizabeth Montgomery. Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, who ran the MacGyver and 12 Monkeys series, will write the script. John Davis and John Fox are producing through Davis Entertainment.

Sony tried a romantic comedy movie version in 2005, which Nora Ephron directed and which starred Nicole Kidman as the witch and Will Ferrell as her hapless husband Darrin. This one will be different, I’m told. Its jumping-off point is the series, in which a witch marries an advertising exec and then tries to hide her powers and her crazy relatives who drop in often.

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Montgomery starred with Dick York (later replaced by Dick Sargent) in the ABC series that ran from 1964-72. The perfect TV series homemaker facade was used effectively in the recent WandaVision series, and the premise — the wife who has a wild life she mostly hides from her briefcase-toting husband — is one that lends itself well to a contemporary setting and the exploration of what makes a modern-day marriage, with all its secrets. Throw in the origins of the witch and her powerful relatives, and those out to do her harm, and there is plenty of creative room here.

Matalas has an overall deal at CBS and is co-running and EP on Star Trek: Picard, and Matalas and Fickett are developing the Witch Mountain remake for Disney+ with Davis and Fox. Those producers teamed on Dolemite Is My Name and Game Night. Matalas and Fickett’s 12 Monkeys ran four seasons on the Syfy from 2015-18. Davis Entertainment is developing for Sony a live-action adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon, based on the best-selling children’s book.

Matalas and Fickett are repped by ICM Partners and AJ Brandenstein at Sloane Offer; Matalas also is repped by David Kanter at Anonymous Content.

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