ABC has ordered a pilot for a reboot of The Wonder Years, but there’s a twist. In the new version the series will be told from the perspective of a black family in the 60s.
According to EW, “ABC is making a pilot for an updated version of The Wonder Years – the 1988 coming-of-age dramedy that ran for six seasons and starred Fred Savage as a middle-class suburban teenager growing up during the late 1960s and early ’70s.
The revival will be set during the same time period, except it will focus on a Black family in Montgomery, Ala.
The show will be executive produced by Empire co-creator Lee Daniels, while Saladin K. Patterson (The Big Bang Theory) is the showrunner and original series co-creator Neal Marlens will be a consultant. Savage is on board as well, as a director and executive producer.”
The official description for the show: “How a black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960’s,the same era as the original series, made sure it was The Wonder Years for them too.”
Alabama was the site of many significant events during the American civil rights movement, such as Rosa Park’s defiance of segregation on a public bus in 1955, a white supremacist church bombing in 1973, and the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery led by Martin Luther King that pushed the government to approve the Civil Rights Act in 1965.
I used to love The Wonder Years as a kid growing up, and with successful ABC shows such as Black-ish, Mixed-ish and The Goldberg’s, I can see TWY fitting in quite cozily with those shows. My only question is, with Lee’s name attached I wonder how edgy he will go, since edgy themes is what he’s known for.
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