ABC Not Moving Forward With Greatest American Hero Reboot

ABC isn’t too interested in superheroes right now, as evidenced by the network’s decision to cancel Marvel’s Inhumans and pass on the Greatest American Superhero reboot this week. To be fair, the news of Inhuman‘s cancellation was far from shocking; the series is easily the least liked IP to come from the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet, and its season 1 ratings reflected as much. As for Greatest American Hero, it’s now the latest reboot of the 1980s TV show to go to pilot, only for the network behind it to decline a series order.

FOX actually passed on two different Greatest American Hero reboot pilots produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller back in 2014 and 2015, the second of which was even directed by Dope filmmaker Rick Famuyiwa. ABC’s Greatest American Hero reboot pilot wasn’t lacking for recognizable talent behind the scenes either, and had Fresh Off the Boat creator Natnatchka Khan and writer/producer Rachna Fruchbom working on the script.

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Just as intriguingly, ABC’s Greatest American Hero reboot had New Girl‘s Hannah Simone starring as Meera, a directionless young Indian-American woman gifted with a super-suit by aliens and charged with protecting earth from those that would seek to do it harm. The comedy series was in a position to bring some welcome diversity to the superhero TV landscape, but Simone confirmed on Twitter that it won’t be happening. UPDATE: Simone has deleted her original tweet and posted the following message in its place:

With Greatest American Hero‘s fate sealed, ABC has yet to make a decision on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s future (or lack thereof) on the network. Inhumans is already the third MCU TV series to get the boot from ABC, after the network cancelled Agent Carter and passed on S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff Marvel’s Most Wanted back in 2016. Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger premieres on ABC’s teen-friendly outlet Freeform next month, but with the network saying no to Greatest American Hero and on the verge of dropping S.H.I.E.L.D., it might not have any superhero shows to call its own in the foreseeable future.

After multiple failed reboot attempts at different networks, it might be time to call it a day on the effort to revive Greatest American Superhero for the time being. Networks don’t seem too hot on superhero comedies in general at the moment, what with Marvel’s New Warriors (a show described as a “docu-comedy”) yet to find a new home after leaving Freeform last fall. NBC similarly cancelled its DC comedy series Powerless before it could finish its first season last year, and Marvel’s Damage Control (a show identical in premise to Powerless) never even got off the ground at ABC despite receiving a pilot order.

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We will bring you more Greatest American Hero news as it becomes available.

Source: Hannah Simone