Sophia Vergara is no longer playing the masked vigilante known as Zorro in a series written by Robert Rodriguez for NBC.
Rodriguez is still co-writing the series with his sister Rebecca Rodriguez (Doom Patrol), who will also direct the show, and Sean Tretta (Mayans M.C.), but now it will debut on The CW. A lead actress has not been chosen yet.
According to Deadline, which first reported the news, the next reiteration of Zorro will be “a young Latinx woman seeking vengeance for her father’s murder [who] joins a secret society and adopts the outlaw persona of Zorro.”
Online reaction to the new series was mixed. Some wondered who it was that asked for a new version of Zorro anyway. Is anyone going to care about the character?
Others like the idea of a female Zorro, but weren’t all too happy that the series was going to The CW.
Some female fans wondered why so many male fans were angry that the new series was making Zorro a different gender.
There were also a few people who pointed out that a Zorro-type female hero has already been done in other TV series like the short-lived Queen of Swords.
It was announced late last year that actor Wilmer Valderrama would star in a new version of Zorro for Disney. “Growing up, Zorro was the one character that made me, as a Latino, feel like I could be a hero,” Valderrama told Deadline. “As an adult and a storyteller, I have a responsibility for the stories that I help bring to life.”
With more than one masked hero from the same source material, maybe the franchise will decide it needs a multiverse, too.