Sony Pictures Television – Kids (formerly Silvergate Media) is looking to reshape retro hits from its catalog into modern IPs for young audiences. The studio is reportedly adapting classic sitcoms Bewitched and The Partridge Family to animated series, according to EVP and General Manager Joe D’Ambrosia.
Bewitched (1964-1972) starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, a witch married to Darrin, an ordinary mortal, trying to live under the radar while contending with the consequences of with her own powers and her meddlesome, magical kin.
The new series would center on Samantha and Darrin’s daughter Tabitha as a 13-year old, as she juggles double lives as a normal middle school student and magical acolyte at an academy run by her witch grandmother, Endora.
Bewitched continues to air around the world in syndication, and has inspired several spinoffs as well as a 2005 movie. Several live-action reboot attempts were announced in the 2010s, but none came to fruition. 9 Story and GO-N also announced they had optioned the rights to develop an animated series back in 2018.
The Partridge Family (1970-74) starred Shirley Jones as a widowed mother who leads a musical group featuring her five children — including Jones’ real-life stepson and pop idol, David Cassidy. The Golden Globe-nominated series made the leap to animation when the kids appeared in Goober and the Ghost Chasers, which led to a 1974 Hanna-Barbera spinoff cartoon Partridge Family 2200 A.D. (also known as The Partridge Family in Outer Space).
The revamp would recast the Partridges as a Black family living in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood. Instead of touring as a band in the show’s iconic Mondrian-inspired school bus, this flock will travel through the five boroughs of N.Y.C. in their food truck, dishing out tasty morsels as well as music.
Both series are in early development and had not yet attached writers before the WGA strike.
[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]
