Sony TV
As Paramount has done with turning various movie properties from its catalog into TV series, Sony is delving into its vast TV holdings to look for properties that can be developed for a modern audience.
The studio shook things up a couple of weeks ago by announcing a deal with NBC to remake the classic crime and romance series Hart to Hart … but with a gay couple replacing the original lovebirds with a taste for solving murders played by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers.
Sony has set its sights on another classic property, Fantasy Island, the star-studded anthology series that featured Ricardo Montalban as the mysterious Mr. Roarke who presided over an island where anyone with enough money could come and have their wildest fantasies (at least those permissible on television) come true as a vacation adventure.
ABC remade Fantasy Island in 1998 with Malcolm McDowall taking over the Roarke role, and the series delved more into the supernatural aspects of the premise while going a bit darker and funnier. Critics seemed to like the new spin but audiences did not book any time on this vacation destination.
The studio and network are looking to shake things up again with the new Fantasy Island … replacing the island altogether. The new Fantasy Island will be the name of a company that designs and executes fantasies for its clients. The series will also transform Mr. Roarke into Ms. Roarke, a “brilliant, dynamic and sexy woman who runs a San Francisco-based company that provides clients with his or her most intimate, dark or outlandish fantasy.” Each episode is expected to feature two fantasies and an overarching storyline involving Roarke’s personal life.
The pilot will be written by Sheldon Turner (Up In the Air). No casting or potential air date have been set.
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