| Chris Harnick 21. November 2014 – 08:29
All in the Family could be coming back to TV, but don’t expect Archie Bunker to be at the center of it all.
According to Variety, Norman Lear, the iconic TV creator behind the original series and other hits such as Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times, has been in discussion with Sony to revive the classic sitcom with a modern twist.
“Forget the Bunkers, forget the characters you know,” Variety quotes the 92-year-old Lear as saying during a talk with Netflix’s Ted Sarandos at the Paley Center in New York. These comments echo what he said during a visit to MSNBC’s The Cycle.
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“We’re talking about doing something, about All in the Family 2015. An entirely different family, but…not necessarily the same, but a 2015 version…A modern version, yeah,” Lear said when asked if Archie Bunker would survive on TV today.
A source told E! News there have been discussions about rebooting All in the Family, but it’s unclear as to whether it will be a new TV series or special.
The new All in the Family, dubbed All in the Family 2015, would likely be about a Latino family, Lear said. The original series followed Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), the head of a working-class white family in Queens. The bigoted patriarch was married to Edith (Jean Stapleton) and had one daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers). Gloria married Michael (Rob Reiner), dubbed a “meathead” by Archie. The show ran from 1971-1979 and produced more than 200 episodes. The character of Archie got a spinoff with Archie Bunker’s Place. It ran for four seasons.
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All in the Family had several spinoffs, including 704 Hauser, a short-lived 1990s sitcom that found a multicultural family living in the old Bunker house.
This would just be the latest revival heading to the small screen. CBS has a new version of The Odd Couple starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon in the wings for midseason. A Bewitched remake is in the works at NBC following Samantha’s granddaughter and a Married…With Children update/sequel series is in development. Several networks also have movie to TV adaptations in the works. There are shows being prepped based on the flicks Big, Marley and Me, Rush Hour and more.
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