It’s Official: CBS Orders ‘Young Sheldon’ For ‘The Big Bang Theory’ Prequel
Fans of The Big Bang Theory will be pleased to hear that CBS has now officially ordered its prequel, Young Sheldon, which will feature Sheldon Cooper actor Jim Parsons serving as executive director and narrator of the new show. Young Sheldon will center around the life of Sheldon Cooper when he was just nine years of age and attending high school in East Texas, and it is rumored that the first season will consist of 13 episodes.
The Big Bang Theory‘s Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro have created Young Sheldon and the cast includes 8-year-old Iain Armitage as 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper, Lance Barber, Raegan Revord, Zoe Perry, and Montana Jordan, as Entertainment Tonight reports.
The Big Bang Theory is now in Season 10 and it is thought that because the stars of this popular series are coming very close to the end of their contracts, they may be willing to take a pay cut so that their co-stars Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik will get their salaries raised. The salaries for the leads are currently $1 million for each episode, and the pay cut will bring it down by $100,000.
If all goes according to plan, Seasons 11 and 12 will soon be on their way for The Big Bang Theory. CBS’s Glenn Geller is confident that the series will be renewed, as he announced at the 2016 TCA Summer Press Tour.
“We are very confident that everyone involved wants more Big Bang past year 10 and I know Warner Bros. will make those deals.”
.@CBS has officially given a series order to @BigBangTheory spinoff #YoungSheldon! https://t.co/B6VIBn89QA #BigBangTheory pic.twitter.com/OaMBa5oZku
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) March 13, 2017
The Independent reports that Les Moonves, CBS’s CEO, has also said that CBS is “on the two-yard line” when it comes to approving 48 more episodes of the show.
With two new series so close to being announced for The Big Bang Theory, the Young Sheldon show announcement is coming just in time. Les Moonves has described what fans can expect from a young Sheldon Cooper and the kind of environment he will be living in as Broadway World report.
“Picture him as a 10 year old boy growing up in Texas with a very right-wing family, not used to this 10-year old genius living in their midst. It’s a terrific script and we have a terrific little kid.”
In episodes of The Big Bang Theory, fans will have picked up on some of Sheldon Cooper’s background and will know that he grew up in Texas and was raised by a religious mother. Because of this, the writers for Young Sheldon will have a lot of material to work with as the basic structure of Cooper’s life is already known.
It is unclear how the new prequel will be structured or if it will be similar to The Big Bang Theory, where there is no plotting or planning of seasons ahead of time, with writers deciding things with each episode written.
Jon Favreau, who was the director of The Jungle Book, will be executive producing as well as directing the first episode of The Big Bang Theory prequel. The filming for Young Sheldon will be quite different with single-camera shooting rather than the more traditional multi-camera shooting of The Big Bang Theory.
There is currently no premiere date set for the 2017-2018 season of the straight-to-series Young Sheldon, so stay tuned to see when The Big Bang Theory prequel will begin this Fall.
[Featured Image by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images]
