Nobody with early looks at the news could change the fate of the Early Edition reboot. CBS has opted to move on from the pilot that would’ve seen the classic 1990s drama a new lease on life with a gender-flipped main character. Filming had just completed on the pilot for the reboot project, but this is one classic television reboot that won’t make it to print.
The new Early Edition would’ve flipped the script on its predecessor, which starred Kyle Chandler in the lead role. Instead, it would’ve seen Alice Eve taking the spotlight as Beth, an executive producer and investigative reporter at the local Seattle news station KSEA. Ambitious and ruthless when it comes to reporting the news, she finds herself at odds with her mentor who believes in focusing on the human toll of a story. Her job only gets more complicated when she starts receiving tomorrow’s newspaper today, taking her from looking for scoops to changing the scoops entirely. Charles Michael Davis, Jay Ali, and Fiona Rene also starred in the pilot.
It wasn’t too dissimilar to its predecessor, which saw Chandler as Gary, an ordinary man who started receiving the Chicago Sun-Times early, accompanied by an odd ginger tabby cat. Where the reboot did differ, and the reboot could have shined, is in the fact that Beth was an investigative journalist which opened the door for plot lines about conflicts of interest. Gary’s moral quandaries often involved deciding who was worth helping and what grisly headlines were most worth changing for the better.
Melissa Glenn was set to write and executive produce the reboot series with Bob Brush and DeVon Franklin for Franklin Entertainment also on board as executive producers, and Jenna Nicholson as co-executive producer for Franklin Entertainment. Sony Pictures Television and AFFIRM Television were producing in association with CBS Studios.
When Chandler originally heard of the Early Edition reboot, he wasn’t necessarily surprised, but it did give him a good laugh that CBS was kicking the idea around. He also reminisced on his time with the show in an exclusive interview with Collider, saying:
The biggest thing I learned from that show was, I used to take the script and they would allow me to make changes. I would fax those changes to L.A., and they would fax back, or let me know what was okay or not. In that way, it worked out very well because I was able to learn how to work scripts and work scenes. In my mind, I was directing, editing, writing and acting, and I had involvement. I was involved in the process, and I realized how important that is, to get everyone involved in the process together, so they have that ownership. That was a great show.
The original Early Edition ran for four seasons from 1996 to 2000 on CBS.
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