The last few years saw a string of shows receive the reboot treatment with Latino leads or story lines from Charmed and Roswell on The CW, to CBS’s actioner Magnum P.I., and the trend doesn’t look like it’s abating anytime soon – Freefrom is turning Party of Five into a deportation drama in January.
ABC is getting in on the trend with the announcement that their cult series Revenge is being rebooted with a Latinx lead. Original show creator Mike Kelley and writer-producer Joe Fazzio will helm the new show which will follow a “young [female] Latinx immigrant” who travels to Malibu to dole out the eponymous revenge against the pharmaceutical company that murdered her mother and unleashed a “global epidemic.” The new series will connect back to the original with a previous cast member, which one remains unknown, helping the new lead in her quest.
It’s said the project is still in development and there are currently no actors, either from the original series or for this new one, announced. Revenge ran four seasons on ABC from 2011 to 2015 and followed a woman returning to the Hamptons to exact revenge on the people who framed her father. Though the original series was never a ratings juggernaut it amassed a heavily devoted following.
Hearing about this project, though, certainly gives pause. The original creator, a white man, is still helming this and the emphasis of the lead being a “Latinx immigrant” sounds like it could be a gimmick. On top of that, ABC recently canceled their soap opera, Grand Hotel, after just one season despite it starring and focusing on a large Latino cast and having Eva Longoria as a producer. The development process is lengthy and there’s no guarantee this will even get a series green light, but it’ll be interesting to see how this gets marketed in comparison to Grand Hotel.