The CW Greenlights Charmed reboot and four other dramas
Despite an already full schedule of renewed shows, The CW has decided to move forward on five new dramas, including the Charmed reboot, a reboot of Roswell, and a spin-off of The Originals! Get all the details on the five new shows below!
The Charmed reboot was in development last year as a prequel that was set in the 1970s, but this version of the series will take place in the present day. The series is based on a story by Jennie Urman (creator of Jane the Virgin). She will executive produce with Jessica O’Toole and Amy Rardin (Jane the Virgin writers) who will also pen the script. Brad Silberling (Jane the Virgin, Dynasty, Reign) will direct. He will also executive produce with Ben Silverman. CBS Television Studios will produce the new Charmed series. The reboot series will star Madeleine Mantock (Into the Badlands), Melonie Diaz (The Belko Experiment) and Sarah Jeffrey (Wayward Pines) as three sisters who discover they are the powerful witches in the world following the death of their mother.
Charmed, launched on the now defunct The WB channel, ran for eight seasons and 178 episodes. It followed the adventures of three Halliwell sisters, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), who discover that their family is part of a long line of powerful witches. Doherty left the series at the conclusion of the third season. The finale saw Prue die, but it was revealed at the beginning of the fourth season that the Halliwells had a hidden half sister, Paige (Rose McGowan), who joined the headlining cast from then on.
Executive produced by Greg Berlanti (Arrow) and created by April Blair (Jane By Design), All American tells the story of a rising high school football player from South L.A. recruited to play for Beverly Hills High and the wins, losses and struggles of two families from vastly different worlds — Crenshaw and Beverly Hills — as they begin to collide. The series is inspired by the life of pro football player Spencer Paysinger.
Comedy-drama In the Dark follows a flawed and irreverent blind woman who is the only “witness” to the murder of her drug-dealing friend. After the police dismiss her story, she sets out with her dog, Pretzel, to find the killer while also managing her colorful dating life and the job she hates at the guide dog school owned by her overprotective parents. The series is executive produced by Ben Stiller (The Meyerowitz Stories) and Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer) and created by Corinne Kingsbury (The Newsroom), and will star Perry Mattfield (Shameless) in the lead role, as well as Austin Nichols (Bates Motel) and Derek Webster (NCIS: New Orleans).
Following the success of both The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off The Originals, The CW is moving forward with a second spin-off entitled Legacies. Continuing the tradition of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, the story of the next generation of supernatural beings at The Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. Klaus Mikaelson’s daughter, 17-year-old Hope Mikaelson; Alaric Saltzman’s twins, Lizzie and Josie Saltzman; and other young adults come of age in the most unconventional way possible, nurtured to be their best selves… in spite of their worst impulses. The series will star Danielle Rose Russell and Matthew Davis reprising their roles from The Originals.
The second adaptation of the hit young adult book series, Roswell follows the daughter of undocumented immigrants that discovers her teenage crush is an alien who has kept his unearthly abilities hidden his entire life. She protects his secret as the two reconnect, but when a violent attack points to a greater alien presence on Earth, the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him. The first adaptation ran on The WB from 1999-2002 and starred Shiri Appleby (UnREAL) and Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up), and the new series will star Jeanine Mason (Grey’s Anatomy) and Nathan Parsons (The Originals) and is being developed by Carina Adly MacKenzie (The Originals).
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)