A reboot of the beloved high school series Friday Night Lights is said to be in development – but with new characters.
The franchise started life as a 1990 nonfiction book called Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team And A Dream by H. G. Bissinger about high school football in Texas.
In 2004, a movie adaptation was released starring Billy Bob Thornton as the coach amid a cast including Garrett Hedlund, Connie Britton and Tim McGraw.
Perhaps the most famous version of the property was the acclaimed show starring Connie and Kyle Chandler, which ran from 2006 to 2011.
Now a reboot is reportedly percolating at Universal Television with a new storyline – and is allegedly generating fierce competition over the streaming rights.
Netflix, Amazon and Peacock are claimed to be locked in a ‘bidding war’ to acquire the upcoming project, according to a new report in Puck.
A reboot of the beloved high school series Friday Night Lights is said to be in development; Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler and Aimee Teegarden are pictured on the 2006-2011 TV series
Peter Berg, who directed the movie and developed the TV series, is also part of the creative team for the revival, according to Deadline.
So are Jason Katims, who was the showrunner of the series, and Brian Grazer, who produced the film and was an executive producer on the TV version.
Kyle Chandler starred on the TV show as high school football coach Eric Taylor in a fictional Texas town, with Connie Britton portraying his wife Tami.
Connie, who had also played the coach’s wife in the movie opposite Billy Bob Thornton, earned two Emmy nominations for her work on the series.
The show featured such names as Michael B. Jordan, Taylor Kitsch, Jurnee Smollett, Minka Kelly, Jesse Plemons and Adrianna Palicki.
Friday Night Lights gained a modest but devoted fanbase and was a critical darling, running for five seasons before its cancelation in 2011.
Kyle and Connie in particular were feted for their performances, with the former winning an Emmy Award for the show’s last season.
Years later, Connie shared that she and Kyle had both told the show’s writers they would refuse to participate in an affair storyline.
In 2004, a movie adaptation was released starring Billy Bob Thornton as the coach (pictured) amid a cast including Garrett Hedlund, Connie Britton and Tim McGraw
However perhaps the most famous version of the property was acclaimed show starring Connie and Kyle Chandler (pictured), which ran from 2006 to 2011
The acclaimed TV series also included Minka Kelly, Zach Gilford, Adrianne Palicki, Gaius Charles, Scott Porter and Taylor Kitsch, pictured in a 2006 publicity still
‘We were like: “We’re never letting the writers have us have an affair. If they try to do it, we’re not going to do it.” And we told them so,’ she revealed.
What we thought would be really interesting and what we thought this would be the perfect format for on the show was to actually show what most couples go through which is just trying to be partners to each other and get through the day,’ she added.
Connie explained that her and Kyle’s characters ‘need each other and they also really love each other,’ on Entertainment Weekly’s Binge podcast.
The 57-year-old actress noted: ‘There was so much passion about these characters that we were playing and this world that we were creating. We felt very strongly about the things that we felt strongly about.’