Paramount TV Studios and Anonymous Content, the studios behind Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Apple’s Defending Jacob, is set to bring back Little House on the Prairie after a 35 year absence. The series, based on a series of novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder between 1932 and 1943 (an unpublished, unfinished manuscript was discovered and posthumously published in the ’70s, making it essentially an elaborate bonus feature in the series box set). Its TV adaptation, which starred Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, ran from 1974 until 1984, running for more than 200 episodes and four movie-length specials and becoming one of the most beloved series of its time.
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Recently, Trip Friendly — the son of Ed Friendly, the TV executive who first licensed the rights from the Wilder family — told EW that there was interest in bringing the world of Little House back to the screen, and that it was something he had been working on. Now, it seems that is one step closer to being a reality, as The Hollywood Reporter is saying a reboot is more than just speculative.
The original series was loosely based on Wilder’s books, which were in turn a fictionalized version of her own experiences growing up in the late 1800s. ABC made a miniseries in 2005 which followed the plot of the books much more closely — but only got around to adapting two of them (Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie), and a follow-up was never made.
Wilder’s death in 1957 didn’t mark the end of the family saga; her daughter Rose Wilder Lane would write some books that were fictionalized accounts of her own experiences, and while they are nowhere near as widely loved as her mother’s, they have stayed in print more or less constantly since they were published.
No writer is attached to the reboot at this point, although it reportedly had interested buyers, and will be produced by Joy Gorman and Dana Fox.
In an interesting twist, the original Little House on the Prairie had promised its remote location to return the countryside to its original condition after they struck their sets. As a result, the series finale centered on the demolition of Walnut Grove, and almost all of the sets were destroyed. One exception? The Ingalls family homestead, which was taken apart and preserved offsite by actor Stan Ivar, who still has it. Could it be refreshed and reused for a prospective revival? Probably not, but Ivar tried to donate it to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum at one point, only to have the move blocked by Ed Friendly. Friendly’s son, who had no idea about any of this, told Entertainment Weekly recently that he supported such a donation if it was still possible.
He also said that the trying times facing Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic may be part of what’s driving a push to revive the show now instead of earlier.
” There has always been a great deal of interest in Little House and in a reboot, particularly this year,” Friendly told the magazine.
