‘Bewitched’ Reboot in Works at Sony: How it Will Be Different

Oh fucking dear. The charm of Bewitched was because of Elizabeth Montgomery and the time it was made.

It won't work in 2024.

Hasn't ANYONE got any new ideas?

Enough with the reboots, they're always crap. When are we going to see a reboot of "I Love Lucy"? I'm sure that'll work 🤨

"Uncle" Arthur will be played by Laverne Cox

[quote]the new Bewitched is described as an hour-long reimagination of the classic series, according to Deadline.

I hate it already.

[...]

No.

Remember when they did Kath & Kim R5? What a fucking disaster!

[...]

God, this is going to be a fucking shit show.

I can see it now: some unknown brown, overweight actor as Samantha with Sarah Ramirez as Darian, her non binary life partner.

MEIN DERWOOD

My grandma will be so excited! Oh wait she died three years ago.

Sara Ramirez to play Samantha. Hmm edgy! Endora to be played by an aging, trans identifying, non-binary Eddie Redmayne - he has the chops for it.

R1 is completely right. The first season of the original Bewitched was much more focussed than it became in later seasons, when it just kept going because of popularity and the charm of Montgomery and (as her antagonist) Moorehead. The first season or two was clearly about men's fear of women's gradually emerging power. Darrin is frantic about Samantha acting like "normal" women (ie the housefraus like Louise Tate and his mother) instead of like someone who can do it all, while Endora specifically asks him, "If you love my daughter, why won't you let her be herself?"

Meanwhile, Darrin's job, which is his main focus outside of nagging Samantha, is to "enchant" people into believing whatever his clients want them to believe. He sees no irony, but you betcha the writers did.

All of that was specific to the time when feminism was just beginning to bubble up and look like it might trouble men's world. Since #metoo that volcano has exploded, so all you could do with Bewitched now is to make a kids' sitcom, which is what the OG became in its later seasons. Only you're right that it probably won't have any of the charm.

The idea of these reboots are nice , but I agree that you can't remake or reboot everything because they only worked in a certain time and place. When you try to bring them to the modern day with all that requires, you usually end up losing the magic of the original. Personally, I think the Brady Bunch movie is the only remake/reboot that figured out how to do it correctly.

Yes, that came across as a genuine homage which, like most fans, saw the funny side of being a fan of the show too. Most reboots come across as moneymaking ventures by people with no imagination.

If anyone hasn't seen The Offer, on Paramount+, I do recommend it. It's about the tribulations of the producer of The Godfather, and how the studio heads and the accountants cannot wrap their heads around the fact that they are trying to make an excellent, trailblazing movie, better than the bestseller book, instead of just another gangster film with lots of guns and car chases and someone like Robert Redford playing a mafioso. There were big objections to every original idea, from the casting of Pacino to the lighting. Thanks to Robert Evans and the determination of the team actually working on the film to make it the best it could be, they not only made a ton of money, but they introduced several of the biggest stars of the next generation and a legendary director. They also paved the way for an entirely new genre of gangster story, from Goodfellas to The Sopranos. Given carte blanche on Godfather II, they did the astonishing and made a sequel that was better than the original.

The writers of The Offer make the point that the people who make the good decisions are people who never forget their original motivation was love of movies, while the people who push the bad decisions are motivated by budgets and the inability to envisage anything being successful that hasn't been successful before. (Kinda like lawyers and precedent.) Over recent years the first type of person seems to have been working on streaming TV comedy and drama, while the second type has risen to the top again in movies, as though the 1970s never happened. I think the second type of person has always been in charge of network TV. It's amazing really that there has ever been anything good on there. Cheers and Seinfeld were both almost canned in their first seasons.

[quote] the new Bewitched is described as an hour-long reimagination of the classic series,

This is the stupidest description on the planet.

It is tantamount to describing water as wet.

No, R16, the " re-imagination" means that the casting will be what is now being referred to as " woke."

Gladys Kravits played by a drag queen.

^Kravitz

Gladys Kravitz could easily be played by A queen. One of my friends knows so much about all the neighborhood gossip that he only has to look out the window for his ironic husband to shout, "Aaabner!"

Isn't Gladys Kravitz the inspiration for the DL, after all?

I'll tune in only if Samantha is a Satan worshipping witch.

It’s supposedly going to be a drama. Samantha will be hate crimed. Every week audiences will learn lessons in social justice.

Because everyone tuned in to the original "Bewitched" to see social issues realistically portrayed.

Could we just reuse the Mad Men actors ? Some of them would work easy !

Didn’t this just happen ten years ago?

It’s bad enough that every mediocre movie has to be remade now every TV show has to be remade too.

The only way I'll accept this is with gratuitous beefcake. Make Endora and Uncle Arthur fond of stripping men.

Beyond the feminism, Bewitched also had some serious - if subtle - gay subtext, as well as very subtly commenting on racial politics of the day.

Maybe they can turn Gladys Kravitz into a busybody gay snoop played by Jim Parsons. With Johnny Galecki as Abner.

[quote]I'll tune in only if Samantha is a Satan worshipping witch.

You mean Taylor Swift?

How It Will Be Different: This time, it will stink.