Rob Lowe Revives ‘West Wing’ Reboot Rumors

Whispers of a West Wing reboot are growing stronger, as Rob Lowe himself addressed the subject in a recent interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Lowe appeared on the CBS late night talk show last week, promoting his appearance in Lifetime’s The Bad Seed. While he was there, however, he spared some screen time to discuss his long tenure in the fictional White House as Sam Seaborn. Colbert broached the reboot rumors when he drew the audience’s attention to a tweet Lowe had posted in July.

“New ‘Will and Grace‘! new ‘Sopranos‘! New ‘The Office‘!” Lowe wrote at the time. “I wish I had been in something that would make a good re-boot. Maybe something timely, that would have relevance in this divided political climate? #OhWell.”

“What does this mean?” Colbert asked rhetorically. “Don’t start something you can’t finish! Don’t tease me Rob Lowe!”

“I just was thinking — I was watching all the reboots come out, and look: I love Murphy Brown as much as the next person,” Low said. “Who doesn’t? But look… I think it’s time to get the old gang back together.”

At the end of the day, Lowe said that the project hinged on Sorkin himself, reverently deferring control of the series to the acclaimed writer.

“It’s all about Aaron Sorkin. He’s the guy who wrote it, he’s the guy who created it. He is The West Wing. We’ve got to figure it out.”

Lowe admitted that Sorkin has not told him anything about a potential comeback, describing him as “very close-lipped.”

The rumors seem to be getting more and more substantial recently. Back in July, Josh Malina posted a photo on Instagram, showing himself at a dinner table with Sorkin and a number of former co-stars, including Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) and Janel Moloney (Donna Moss).

Back in April, Sorkin himself confirmed that he had been in talks with NBC executive Bob Greenblatt about a potential revival.

“I want you to do The West Wing again in some form,” Sorkin recalled Greenblatt saying. “You can do it for nine episodes, 13 episodes. You do it with a different cast, the same cast.”

“It was incredible, really, because it didn’t seem to be a commercial pitch that he was making,” Sorkin added. “He was just so bummed out by the world.”

Numerous cast members, including Lowe, Whitford, Elisabeth Moss and Martin Sheen — who played fictional president Jed Bartlet — have voiced interest in a reboot this year. However, Sorkin told The Hollywood Reporter that the cast would look at least a little different.

“Sterling K. Brown as the president, and there’s some kind of jam, an emergency, a very delicate situation involving the threat of war or something, and [President] Bartlet, long since retired, is consulted in the way that Bill Clinton used to consult with Nixon,” he pitched.