Reba McEntire to Star in ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ Series at NBC

Reba McEntire is heading back to the small screen, with the country icon set to star in a Fried Green Tomatoes television series at NBC. Variety reports that a series adaptation of the 1991 film is described as a “modernization” of the movie and the novel it was based on and will explore the lives of the descendants from the original work.

The movie Fried Green Tomatoes was adapted from the 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The comedy-drama film starred Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker and Cicely Tyson and followed a housewife who, unhappy with her own life, befriended an older woman in a nursing home and listened to her stories about the town of Whistle Stop and its citizens. The Academy nominated the movie for two Oscars — Best Supporting Actress for Tandy and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The new series will star McEntire as present-day Idgie Threadgoode, who returns to Whistle Stop after a decade away and must wrestle with a changed town, estranged daughter, faltering cafe and life-changing secret. In addition to starring, McEntire will also executive produce the project along with Norman Lear, who was an executive producer on the film. Jennifer Cecil will write and executive produce, as will Fannie Flagg, the author of the original novel and a co-writer on the film’s script.

McEntire is no stranger to television — she starred on her sitcom, Reba, from 2001-2007 — and it seems she had been looking to head back to the small screen, saying multiple times that she and her former Reba castmates would love to do a reunion. During a media event on Sept. 3, McEntire shared that the group is “all for” a reunion of some kind.

“The problem is the higher uppers, if they’re for it,” she explained, via The Country Daily. “But we’ve let them know that we’re anxiously awaiting some feedback and letting us know whether or not we can do a reboot, a two-hour special, a movie of the week. We don’t care. We just love each other. We’ve got so many more stories that we didn’t get to tell before when they canceled us that we’re just excited to get back together.”

“We’d love to, as a matter of fact, we’ve been texting each other,” McEntire told Hoda Kotb on the Today show in May of a potential reunion. “[Co-star] Melissa Peterman started it out and we’re all talking, hoping to get back together. We miss each other. It was a fun group to get to play with, work with, so we’d love to do it. Even if it’s a two-hour movie or a… I don’t know, whatever. We’d love to get back together. They’re wonderful people.”