CBS All Access Releases ‘Twilight Zone’ Reboot Promo

The first promo for the CBS All Access revival of The Twilight Zone has been released and it teases a 2019 release date for the sci-fi series.

The series will be hosted and executive produced by Jordan Peele, who won an Academy Award in 2018 for his film Get Out.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new series is described as “a modern re-imagining” of the original Twilight Zone, which was created by Rob Serling. The new promo features a portion of the original series intro with Sterling’s narration that blends into Peele’s voice halfway through.

“Rod Serling was an uncompromising visionary who not only shed light on social issues of his time, but prophesied issues of ours,” Peele said in a statement about the new show. “I’m honored to carry on his legacy to a new generation of audiences as the gatekeeper of The Twilight Zone.”

The original Twilight Zone series aired on CBS from 1959 to 1964, running for 156 episodes.

It was later revived in 1985 and ran until 1989. That first revival also aired on CBS, and was narrated by actors Charles Aidman (1985–87) and Robin Ward (1988–89).

The Twilight Zone was revived a second time in 2002 and hosted by Forest Whitaker (Rouge One: A Star Wars Story, Black Panther). That revival aired on UPN (now The CW) and only lasted for one 43-episode season.

Peele emerged on the horror/sci-fi scene with 2017s Get Out, which was a massive success earning more than $250 million at the box office on a budget of only $4.5 million. It also found favor with critics as to this day, it holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of 99 percent fresh.

In an interview with Vulture in February 2018, Peele spoke about his inspiration for the film and why he decided to make it, citing some clear social and politically-motivated reasons.

“I had never seen the uncomfortableness of being the only black guy in a room played in a film. That notion is a perfect state for a protagonist of a horror film to be in, to question his own sanity. Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives were movies that did with gender what I wanted to do with race,” he explained. “And then, [once I] decided that I wanted to bite off the difficult task of making a film about race, that was a scary notion. If you fail at that, you’ve really failed.

“The connection to Barack [Obama] and Hillary [Clinton] was that for the first time, I was looking at gender and race as two parallel civil-rights movements that you could go crazy with. It almost felt like, ‘Who has been waiting long enough? Is it the woman?’ All boiled down. Racism and sexism were seen as two parallel problems,” Peele continued. “So I thought if you could make a movie as entertaining as Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, which have what should be an equally offensive notion — that men are going to conspire against women — you could do it with race.

Peele’s CBS All-Access exclusive reboot of The Twilight Zone does not appear to have specific premiere date, but it is speculated to be set for a fall 2019 debut.