Apparently not subscribing to the belief of “WHAT? WHY? NO. Why would you remake Roots? Roots is excellent as-is, and if you really wanted to get the word out about how powerful and moving it is you could always just, like, play the original, award-winning 1977 miniseries in its entirety on your cable network and promote the hell out of it,” the History Channel is taking a different strategy: They’re going to remake Roots.
“But wait,” you ask, “can anyone make this sound like an opportunistic cash grab that attempts to piggyback on the success of other projects that deal with a similar subject matter?”
The timing couldn’t be better — the topic of slavery is very much on people’s minds through a string of popular movies including last year’s Django Unchained, this year’s Oscar hopeful 12 Years A Slave, and with Lee Daniels’ The Butler also touching on the subject. Add to that the success of other recent historical films like Lincoln. “History in general is in the zeitgeist, which is great for us being a network whose name is History,” Hoogstra said. The cable network has played a major role in bringing history to the forefront of pop culture over the past couple of years with its blockbuster miniseries Hatfields & McCoys and The Bible as well as series The Vikings. [Deadline]
I, for one, look forward to the credits rolling on a particularly powerful installment of this remake as an announcer for the network asks us to stay tuned for an exciting new episode of Swamp People.
