Urban Cowboy TV Series in the Works From Paramount+

Comic book writer Benjamin Percy will take on a staple of Blockbuster Video, as Paramount+ has announced he will write on a TV adaptation of the 1980 John Travolta movie Urban Cowboy. Percy will co-write the pilot with James Pondsolt, who will direct it. This is the latest attempt to bring a TV version of the movie to life, with the most recent effort coming at Fox in 2015. That version was scrapped without getting too far.

The original film centered on Sissy and Bud, a pair of star-crossed lovers who have a love-hate relationship that was arguably more suited to TV — especially the TV of the ’80s, where Moonlighting and Cheers did it masterfully — than to a single feature film.

Per Variety, who first reported on it, “the Urban Cowboy project comes after Paramount Television Studios first set up development on a TV series based on the film of the same name at Fox in 2015, which was later scrapped. The Paramount Plus version of the show, based on the John Travolta-Debra Winger movie, goes deeper into Bud’s journey from farm to the big city in 1980s Houston and will feature iconic music from that era. James Pondsolt is directing and co-writing with Benjamin Percy.”

That Urban Cowboy is coming back is matched up with the return of another ’80s icon on Paramount+ in the form of Frasier, coming back from star and executive producer Kelsey Grammer, who played the character for 20 years from 1984 until 2004 on Cheers and then the original series of Frasier.

In the original film (as described by Google Play Movies), after moving to Pasadena, Texas, country boy Bud Davis (Travolta) starts hanging around a bar called Gilley’s, where he falls in love with Sissy (Debra Winger), a cowgirl who believes the sexes are equal. They eventually marry, but their relationship is turbulent due to Bud’s traditional view of gender roles. Jealousy over his rival, Wes (Scott Glenn), leads to their separation, but Bud attempts to win Sissy back by triumphing at Gilley’s mechanical bull-riding competition.

There’s no clear sign of when production will start or when the series will drop. Keep your eyes on ComicBook for more details as they become available.