ABC has announced that The Wonder Years is set to be rebooted. But unlike most of the reboots littering our lives, this one actually stands to be better than the original, since it will be executive produced by Empire’s Lee Daniels.
This time around, the plot will revolve around “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.”
The pilot, penned Dave executive producer Saladin Patterson, will draw from his experiences growing up in Montgomery around the same time the show takes place. Fred Savage, who stars as Kevin Arnold in the original, will also co-executive produce along with Daniels.
Before we get too ahead of ourselves, keep in mind that at this stage, the series only has a pilot production commitment, meaning that if the pilot script is approved by ABC, it will trigger the opening of a “mini writers room” ahead of a possible series pickup, Deadline explains.
In 2018, Alley Mills, who played the mother on the show, said that the original Wonder Years was canceled after six seasons following a sexual harassment lawsuit against Savage and Jason Hervey, who played Savage’s brother. While a 1993 lawsuit was filed by a 31-year-old costume designer, which accused Savage (then 16) and Hervey (then 20) of verbal and physical harassment, it’s unclear whether that was the reason the show ceased production.