Nearly 30 years after first hitting theaters to rave reviews and roaring box office success, Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes is making another trip to the screen as NBC is teaming with Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Norman Lear and Reba McEntire for a series adaptation of the dramedy novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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The series, which is being penned by Jennifer Cecil (Private Practice, One Tree Hill), will take a modern-day approach to the 1987 novel and will explore the lives of the descendants of the novel, centering on a present-day Idgie Threadgoode, who returns to the small town of Whistle Shop, Alabama, after a decade away and must come to terms with a changed town, estranged daughter, struggling cafe and life-changing secret. The role of Idgie was previously portrayed by Mary Stuart Masterson in the film adaptation of the novel.
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Lear will produce the series under his Act III Productions banner alongside producing partner Brent Miller, while the author of the novel and co-writer fo the original film Flagg is set to executive produce with McEntire and Cecil. The 98-year-old celebrated Hollywood producer and writer previously executive produced the 1991 film adaptation of Flagg’s novel.
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The original novel and film centered on housewife Evelyn Couch who finds herself unhappy with her life and begins to form a friendship with Ninny Threadgoode, an elderly woman living in a nursing home who tells her stories about her youth in the the town in which her sister-in-law, Idgie, and friend Ruth ran a cafe. The cast for the film included Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy), Masterson (Daniel Isn’t Real), Kathy Bates (American Horror Story), Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds, Billions) and Cicely Tyson (Sounder, The Help).
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