Ally McBeal Revival With Calista Flockhart Reportedly Being Considered

An Ally McBeal revival is being considered and 20th Century is trying to get Calista Flockhart on board. In an era of reboots, it makes sense that some companies would go back to major series from the past. Ally McBeal ran on Fox for five years at the tail end of the 1990s. America was enamored with the trials and tribulation of a Boston lawyer and Flockhart’s performance. It goes without saying that the entire enterprise kind of hinges on the series star being along for the ride. There are some concerns about how specific instances from the original series would be handled in the #MeToo era. (Also questions like how would you get the CGI baby back and there’s not enough money in the world to bring back Robert Downey Jr.)

David E. Kelley created the show and produced during that meteoric run. And he told The Hollywood Reporter that the reboot wasn’t set in stone back in 2018.

He began, “I don’t really have an interest in going backward, myself. In fact, I’ve not even seen the shows after I’ve made them. I do think because of the gender politics that were so part and parcel of Ally McBeal, it’s become very relevant and ripe. So, I’d be open to the idea of Ally McBeal being done again, but I don’t think it should be done by me. If it were going to be done, it really should be done by a woman. If it’s going to be new, it should be new and different. And I did it: 100 hours.”

“I’m at a point in my advanced years where I got to tell all the stories that were in my well. I’ve done many half pilots or three-quarter pilots because, for me, the discovering of the show is in the writing,” the producer continued. “I’ll start writing and try to discover whether the characters are fertile to me. And then I do another test when I’m halfway or three-quarters through, which is: Have I done a version of this before? And if I have, I’ll put it down.”

“Now I feel like the best way to avoid sameness is to use as my starting point someone else’s baby. It’s not something that I ever thought would appeal to me because the intoxication comes with the idea — that’s the fuel that drives you as a writer. If you’re not hatching the idea, I always felt it was going to be like hard labor without the drugs,” he concluded.

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