More than a year after the 32nd season of MTV‘s The Real World aired, the network and series producer Bumin-Murray Productions are reportedly looking to reboot or reinvent the long-running reality series.
Sources told Deadline on Thursday that the producers and network have pressed the “pause button” on the franchise to revive it in a way similar to the new Jersey Shore series.
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“We’re talking,” Bunim-Murray co-founder and Real World co-creator Jonathan Murray told Deadline, hinting that MTV was involved in the reboot.
There will be one big difference between the new season and previous years. Although MTV is involved, the project will be shopped to other outlets, with Bunim-Murray hoping to find a streaming service interested. It could follow in the footsteps of Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which was revived on Netflix.
The 32nd season of The Real World ended on Jan. 4, 2017. Since then, the series has been sitting dormant, but its place in reality TV history is not forgotten. The show helped usher in the reality series trend since its debut in 1992.
MTV has found success with the revived The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. However, the network had much less success with the revived TRL. Although the show was not cancelled as TMZ once reported, it was critically drubbed. TV Line reports that the show will return, but with some major overhauling.
The Real World was inspired by the 1973 PBS series An American Family, and made TV history with its frank depiction of AIDS, religion, substance abuse, sex and prejudice. Each new season features a new crop of young people living together in different locations. The most recent season was set in Seattle.
Some Real World alumni have gone on to find fame on television, movies and the fashion world. Actresses Jamie Chung and Jacinda Barrett, writer Judd Winick, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy and wife Rachel Campos-Duffy and swimsuit model Mallory Snyder all appeared on the series.
In 2016, Pat, a cast-member from the 2009 season, told Cracked that being on Real World is not as easy as you think. Pat claimed some of the scenes are actually “controlled,” although not exactly scripted. He also said a season’s success was based on the cast. “If you’ve got a good casting director, you don’t need to [fake] anything,” he said, but the producers do help spark conflicts.
“One time I got a little too drunk and hurt my roommate’s feelings, and he’s still one of my best friends to this day, so I got really apologetic and he was like ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine,’” Pat explained. “It was nothing, it was a two-second thing. So then in my interview they would say ‘Don’t you think he was being over-sensitive?’ and I was like ‘No, not really.’ And then in his interview they would say, ‘Don’t you think he was over-the-line?’ and he was like ‘No, not really.’”