CEITEDMOFO
Banned
he Twilight Zone is entering a new dimension.
CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves announced Thursday during the company's earnings call that CBS All Access is readying a new take on the iconic science fiction anthology. It's unclear at the moment if it's a straight to series order or just development.
The Rod Serling-created series ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959-1964. Producers CBS Television Studios retained the rights to the cult classic and will exec produce the new take. Sources say the show hails from Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw banner, with Marco Ramirez (Netflix Marvel dramas The Defenders and Daredevil, Sons of Anarchy) is set to pen the script and serve as showrunner. CBS All Access declined comment on Peele and Ramirez's involvement as official details have not yet been announced beyond Moonves' initial announcement.
The news comes as CBS All Access has found success with its revival of Star Trek: Discovery, which the streamer said drove record subscriptions to the platform and renewed for a second season. The Twilight Zone joins a roster of CBS All Access scripted originals that also includes dramas The Good Fight (a spinoff from The Good Wife), Strange Angel, $1 and comedy No Activity.
Peele found success with horror feature Get Out — which many have described as an African-American version of The Twilight Zone.
CBS last tried to revive The Twilight Zone in 2012 when the studio teamed with X-Men's Bryan Singer to develop, exec produce and potentially direct a new version of the anthology. The network revived the series in the 1980s that ran for three seasons and again in 2002 for a season on UPN with host Forest Whitaker. The franchise has been licensed to a new stage play set to premiere at the Almeida Theatre in London set to run in December and January 2018. The original series won three Emmys during its 156-episode run and explored topics including humanity's hopes, despairs, prides and prejudices.
The Twilight Zone revival arrives as individual episodic anthologies have become increasingly popular following shows like Netflix's Black Mirror, HBO's Room 104, TBS' The Guest Book. In a crowded landscape of nearly 500 scripted shows, individual episodic anthologies are easier to consume.
Meanwhile, reboots and revivals continue to be in high demand as broadcast, cable and streaming platforms look for proven and easy to market IP in a bid to cut through the cluttered landscape. Key to the reboots is having the original producers attached, with would be CBS Television Studios in the case of The Twilight Zone.
Peele, whose TV credits also include Netflix's Big Mouth, Comedy Central's Key and Peele and TBS' The Last OG as well as feature Keanu, is repped by CAA, Principato-Young and Morris Yorn. Ramirez is repped by UTA.
