Twilight Zone Revival Ordered to Series at CBS All Access, With Get Out‘s Jordan Peele Among the EPs
CBS All Access is officially journeying back to a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.
The streaming service on Wednesday announced that it has ordered to series The Twilight Zone, a “modern reimagining” of the classic sci-fi anthology to be executive-produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out), Simon Kinberg (Legion) and Marco Ramirez (Marvel’s The Defenders). Word of the official green light comes just one month after CBS CEO Leslie Moonves announced the network’s plans to revive the Rod Serling-hosted classic via All Access.
“Too many times this year it’s felt we were living in a twilight zone, and I can’t think of a better moment to reintroduce it to modern audiences,” Peele said in a statement. Added Kinberg: “The Twilight Zone was a touchstone in my life. The opportunity to continue its lineage is a dream come true, and I’m so thrilled to be doing it with Jordan, Marco and the team at CBS All Access.”
“The original The Twilight Zone bridged science-fiction, horror and fantasy together to explore human nature and provide social commentary in a way that audiences had never seen before,” CBS All Access EVP Julie McNamara said. “Under the auspices of Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez, and with the creative freedom that the CBS All Access platform affords, this is an incredible opportunity to bring today’s audiences a modern reimagining of this iconic series.”
The original Twilight Zone ran for five seasons on CBS between 1959 and 1964. It has been revived twice in the past: Once in the mid-1980s on CBS and again in the early 2000s on UPN. A revival was last in the works in 2012, with Bryan Singer (House) attached, but that project ultimately fell through.
Isn’t Black Mirror already kind of a re-imagining of The Twilight Zone?
The Twilight Zone was a huge part of my life growing up, so as a rule i’d been opposed to any potential remake- this may be the one exception; I love me some Peele.
So CBS is still taking the approach of putting any decent content on All Access and crap on the broadcast network. I would really like to see this and The Good Fight and Star Trek but can’t keep adding more subscription services.
I don’t understand these posts? Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, all of these streaming services are month to month, consumers can cancel them at anytime. Consumers are not under contract and stuck with them for an entire year. If CBS All Access eventually has enough shows that you are interested in watching, how difficult is it to cancel Netflix for one month, subscribe to All Access for a month, watch what you are interested in, cancel All Access after a month, and than subscribe to Netflix? The original series that premiere on Netflix that premiere the month that you don’t have Netflix are still going to be there when you resubscribe to Netflix.
Very true. Point taken. I could join for one month binge Good Fight and Star Trek and cancel. Its just unfortunate, the network’s new fall shows were just so bad its like they are not even trying to compete quality-wise with cable and streaming.
I would agree that the quality of the new CBS series are a fair point. Rather or not they should compete or can compete with cable or streaming quality wise, CBS at the very least should try to make “good versions” of CBS series, and the past two seasons at least with comedy they are falling woefully short of making “good versions” of CBS comedies.
I should really treat HBO, Showtime, and Starz that way: stick with the basics and subscribe and binge a month at a time until that kind of consumer behavior forces business model changes. If I had to guess, in 20 years, most original programming will either be something where you cannot avoid the ads or a form of pay-per-view. Or both.
Should be interesting without the censorship it would encounter on a network.
The Twilight Zone is a classic. Writers used the vehicle that they were given at the time to their advantage, creating timeless stories because of the restraints that they were under. Today’s creators have much more freedom to do whatever they want, and that has resulted in pretty much no subtly at all, and incredibly dated material. As much as I’d love to see a great Twilight Zone remake on TV, I just don’t know that today’s crop of writers has it in them.
Dark Mirror is a great alternative though. It’s not quite The Twilight Zone, since it has an obvious focus on technology, and feels like it takes place in more or less the same universe. But it’s a great show.
Thanks for destroying another franchise all in the name of diversity. A writer’s panel full of social justice warriors and television hacks. What happened to stories coming from top scifi and horror writers?!