Some have heard it said that clear eyes and full hearts can’t lose and Peacock would definitely be able to back up that sentiment because their eyes have officially completed a game-winning touchdown pass. Deadline reveals that the streamer has nabbed the highly sought-after Friday Night Lights series reboot, trampling out the competition and tackling other platforms like Netflix for the sure-fire hit. Shaking things up a bit, this won’t be the same Friday Night Lights of your millennial loved one, but will instead follow a Texas high school football team attempting to pull it together to make it to the State Championship.
Sure, that all sounds pretty parallel to the feature-length and series projects that came before, but this time, mother nature plays a huge role, after a hurricane smashes its way through the team’s town, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. With no decision but to rebuild and move on, the town turns its attention to the team as its source of inspiration and hope during its darkest chapter.
If reading this made your palms as sweaty as a quarterback during a fourth down decision (did we use that terminology correctly?) and now you’re thinking “they’re going to ruin the classic!” fear not. It will soothe your soul to know that the names involved with Peacock’s Friday Night Lights reimagining have deep-rooted connections to the movie and series of yesteryear. Though Universal Television will be the production’s backbone, it hails from the original showrunner, Jason Katims, original director, Peter Berg, and producer, Brian Grazer. The three close-to-the-family names will also produce alongside Imagine Entertainment’s Kristen Zolner.
A Timeless Story About Underdogs
Everyone loves an underdog story and the success of Friday Night Lights from page to screen has proven exactly that. Penned by H.G. Bissinger, a novel titled Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team and a Dream, first hit shelves in 1990 and was based on the true story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas, who – against all odds – rose from zeroes to heroes and took the state championships by storm. Their story would first receive on-screen treatment thanks to Berg’s 2004 movie Friday Night Lights, which featured leading performances from Billy Bob Thornton, Garrett Hedlund, Connie Britton and more. Britton would go on to make the crossover from big to small screen when the story was picked up by NBC in 2006 for a series version. Proving that the world hadn’t had its fill of the football tale, the show enjoyed an incredibly successful five-season run before heading to the bench in 2011.
As of right now, no further details surrounding the Friday Night Lights reimagining have been revealed but stay tuned to Collider for more information.
via Collider