The Wonder Years Reboot to Star a Black Family Living in Alabama in the 1960s
Plenty of classic shows have been getting the reboot treatment lately, with some hewing to the original concept more than others. But with its reinvention of the much-loved series The Wonder Years, ABC is doing something particularly interesting: taking a dramedy about a white family in the 1960s, keeping the concept of the period-set coming-of-age show, but transposing it to a Black family household in Montgomery, Alabama.
Here's what we know about The Wonder Years reboot.
A pilot is in the works.
ABC hasn't yet greenlit a series order, but the show has a pilot production commitment, and will open a "mini-writers' room" upon approval of the pilot script, Deadline reports.
That pilot will set up the series, which promises to be a whole new kind of Wonder Years. The official description reads: "How a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960s, the same era as the original series, made sure it was The Wonder Years for them too."
Television veterans are working on the series—as is Fred Savage.
Veteran writer and producer Saladin K. Patterson (Dave, The Last O.G., The Big Bang Theory) will serve as showrunner, and base the show in part on his own experience of growing up in Montgomery. Multi-hyphenate talent Lee Daniels will executive produce, and none other than Fred Savage—the star of the original Wonder Years—is onboard to executive produce, and will direct the pilot upon the script's approval.
Neal Marlens, the co-creator of the original series, will join the project as a consultant.
There's no timeline as of yet.
Viewers will likely have to wait some time before the Wonder Years reboot hits screens, as the pilot script is still in the works. And, of course, there's also the matter of the pandemic, which has made producing television almost impossible for months.
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