While nothing is officially set in stone, it seems very likely we will be seeing a revival of the hit ABC sitcom Roseanne in the very near future. Word on the street is original series cast members Roseanne Barr, John Goodman and Sara Gilbert have already boarded the project, which may even end up airing on the network where it all began.
According to Deadline, the new installment of the blue-collar comedy set in Lanford, Illinois is already being shopped around with Netflix and ABC among its bidders. The revival is executive produced by original series EPs Tom Werner, Barr and Bruce Helford along with Gilbert and Whitney Cummings — the lattermost who will act as co-runner with Helford.
Though the rest of the original cast has not yet officially announced their involvement, Laurie Metcalf (who played Roseanne’s neurotic sister in the series) and others are already reportedly in the process of joining the project. Sources are also saying the intent is to have all principal actors appear in some capacity including Johnny Galecki (who played David in the series) of The Big Bang Theory fame.
Incase you missed it, Gilbert and Goodman staged a reunion on The Talk just last month that saw the duo reprising their iconic roles for a brief clip during which Darlene Conner came out… as a talk show host… to her onscreen dad aka Dan. See the clip below.
During Goodman’s visit to the daytime show, he also made it very clear he would be interested in a Roseanne revival. “Oh, hell yes.” he told The Talk’s Julie Chen. “…They’d [the Conners] have a lot more to deal with right now. But yeah, that would be a blast!”
Barr also expressed some interest in her former small screen family in a blog post back in 2009 in which she said Roseanne and Jackie would run the first medical marijuana dispensary in Lanford, Dan would show up after faking his own death, Darlene and her female companion would have a test tube baby, Becky would be employed by Walmart, DJ would be an author and David would leave Darlene for a younger woman.
The news of the Roseanne revival comes just prior to the 20th anniversary of series’ finale, which aired May 20, 1997.