The CW Orders Greg Berlanti’s ‘Kung Fu’ Reboot & ‘The Republic Of Sarah’ To Series
The CW has ordered Greg Berlanti’s female-led Kung Fu reboot to series alongside The Republic of Sarah. According to Deadline, the two straight-to-series orders will be slated for the 2020-21 fall TV season, although it is not yet clear when the two shows will continue production, given the current shutdowns.
Kung Fu is a reboot of the 1970s action-adventure martial arts drama starring David Carradine. The new version will star Legacies actress Olivia Liang. The Republic of Sarah is a small town drama set to star relative newcomer Stella Baker in the title role.
Kung Fu will focus on a “young Chinese-American woman” after she drops out of college following a crisis and embarks on a “life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.”
The Republic of Sarah is about a “rebellious high school teacher” named Sarah Cooper, who tries to save her town from being razed by a mining company by using “an obscure cartographical loophole to declare independence.” Sarah must then “lead a young group of misfits as they attempt to start their own country from scratch.”
These two series pick-ups join Jared Padalecki’s Walker, Texas Ranger reboot and the upcoming Superman & Lois series, which also hails from Berlanti and will join the rest of The CW’s DC comics slate of superhero television shows.
Still in contention for possible pickup is Green Arrows and the Canaries and The 100 prequel series. The backdoor pilot of Canaries aired as part of Arrow‘s final season, and an episode of the potential prequel to The 100 will debut during the show’s upcoming seventh season.
The CW also recently imported several series from outside networks to fill out their upcoming summer and fall slate. They will air the first two seasons of Tell Me a Story, season one of Swamp Thing, and Serinda Swan’s Coroner. They also bought the rights to the British sitcom Dead Pixels from BBC Studios. It is not yet clear when these series will make their network debut.
Two other pilots in development, The Lost Boys reboot and Maverick, are being rolled over to the next television season. The CW’s decision is yet another setback for The Lost Boys, which has already undergone several incarnations and pilot orders since it first began development during the 2016-17 season.
