‘Friday Night Lights’ Reboot Lands Streaming Home at Peacock

Friday Night Lights is coming back. It was announced in November that the beloved football drama had a reboot in the works from Universal Television. Deadline reports that Peacock has secured the new series after beating out Netflix. Original showrunner Jason Katims, original director Peter Berg, and producer Brian Grazer are attached to the project and will executive produce with Kristen Zolner for Imagine Entertainment.

The new show “will be set following a devastating hurricane, when a rag tag high school football team and their damaged, interim coach make an unlikely bid for a Texas High School State Championship and become a beacon of light for their town.” As if it wasn’t evidenced by the description, the reboot will center on a new set of characters. It’s unknown if the Dillon Panthers will once again take center stage or if it will focus on a new high school team.

The original Friday Night Lights series was inspired by the 1990 novel Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger, which was adapted into the 2004 film Friday Night Lights. FNL ran for five seasons from 2006 to 2011. It was initially on NBC for the first two seasons, but the network struck a deal with DirecTV to save the show, which was in danger of being canceled because of low ratings. The two co-produced three seasons, premiering on DirecTV’s 101 Network and rebroadcasting on NBC a few months later.

Lead by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, the ensemble cast of the Friday Night Lights series included Giaus Charles, Zach Gilford, Minka Kelly, Adrianne Palicki, Taylor Kitsch, Jesse Plemons, Scott Porter, Aimee Teegarden, and Michael B. Jordan, among others. As of now, it’s unknown if there will be a possibility of any of the original cast members appearing in the new series, but you never know what could happen.

A Friday Night Lights reboot has long been in discussion, with Britton saying that while she could see a reunion with the cast, “I don’t see them going back into that story, at least with that cast.” At the very least, with the original team attached, the reboot shouldn’t be too bad, especially since the story is different. It will be interesting to see how it goes down, and more information will likely be announced in the coming months.