Roseanne will officially continue — without Roseanne Barr. ABC announced Thursday night that it greenlit a spinoff of the series called The Conners (working title) in which John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson, and Michael Fishman will reprise the roles they had on Roseanne, ABC News reported.
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Barr, the creator and star of the original sitcom, which aired from 1988-1997, as well as the 2018 reboot, will have no financial or creative say over the new series.
"The Conners’ stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love. The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago," ABC shared in a statement.
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Shortly after the end of the 2018 reboot's first season back in late May, Barr tweeted racist comments about former White House advisor Valerie Jarrett. Several cast members and producers immediately spoke out against the comments.
I will not be returning to @RoseanneOnABC. — Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes) May 29, 2018
Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least. — sara gilbert (@THEsaragilbert) May 29, 2018
On May 29, ABC canceled the show, blaming Barr's comments, which they called "abhorrent, repugnant." Barr was also dropped by her representation, ICM Parnters.
"There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing," Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted about the cancelation.
The Conners will air Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. EST this fall.
After canceling the comedy following star Roseanne Barr's racist tweet, the Disney-owned network has found a way to move forward with the original cast, creators and likely crew as 'The Conners.'
Weeks after its stunning decision to cancel Roseanne, ABC is officially moving forward with a spinoff of TV's current No. 1 series — without controversial star Roseanne Barr.
Following aggressive talks with exec producer Tom Werner, the Disney-owned broadcaster has handed out a 10-episode, straight-to-series order for Roseanne spinoff The Conners (working title). The new take, which will also be a multicamera comedy and premiere in the fall, will follow the Conner family who, after a sudden turn of events, are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before.
ABC stressed in its announcement Thursday that former star Barr will have no financial or creative involvement in the new series. Werner and Barr reached an agreement that will allow Werner Entertainment to produce the spinoff for ABC without Barr’s further creative or financial participation. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Barr will retain all rights to her Roseanne Conner character and any future spinoffs beyond The Conners or any future reboots of the original.
"I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from Roseanne. I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved,” Barr said in a statement. Added Werner: “We are grateful to have reached this agreement to keep our team working as we continue to explore stories of the Conner family.”
Roseanne stars John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman will star in the spinoff. Additional castmembers and a premiere date will be announced at a later date. "We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience," Goodman, Metcalf, Gilbert, Goranson and Fishman said in a joint statement. "We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.”
ABC says the new take will explore issues with parenthood, dating an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. The series will take over Roseanne's Tuesdays at 8 p.m. time slot. The Conners hails from the creative team behind what was to be the 11th season of Roseanne, including showrunner Bruce Helford, Gilbert, Dave Caplan, Bruce Rasmussen and Tony Hernandez. The series hails from Werner and Werner Entertainment.
"The Conners’ stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love. The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago,” ABC said in a statement.
Despite multiple reports that the network was open to a new take on Roseanne, the decision to move forward with a new version of the series should still be seen as a surprise, given the considerable obstacles that had to be overcome in order to move forward.
A major point of contention was to find a way to reinvent Roseanne that would not financially benefit Barr, which was said to be a top demand from ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey and Werner. The series was created by Matt Williams (the show's first showrunner, who departed in season one after clashing with the actress) and is based upon a character (yes, singular) created by Barr.
As THR previously reported, Barr had agreed in principle to walk away from the characters she helped create in order to allow the cast and crew to pursue a spinoff. But since Barr would be entitled to substantial fees and backend on a Roseanne spinoff, the actress had to waive those rights before a new take could move forward. The last key hurdle was over what, if any, one-time payment Barr was to receive as "go-away money," as one source put it. Barr will retain an executive producer credit on the new take, per WGA rules.
Talks to continue the series heated up almost immediately following the cancellation after exec producer Werner, whose Carsey-Werner banner produced the original series and the 10th season, became highly engaged in finding a new path forward. (Werner's longtime partner, Marcy Carsey, recently said that she would not try to revive the comedy following its cancellation.)
The move to breathe new life into the franchise comes as Disney was on the hook to pay stars Gilbert (who plays Darlene), Metcalf (Jackie) and Goodman (Dan) for the since-scrapped 11th season. The trio, along with Barr, negotiated new deals for the 13-episode season at $300,000 per episode (up from $250,000 for season 10). They expected to be paid for at least 10 episodes since their options were exercised. What was less clear was if and how the writing staff, including showrunner Helford, were to be compensated.
Following the cancellation, ABC found itself in a unique position. Roseanne was due to return in the fall and open the network's Tuesday lineup as ABC was briefly poised to head into the 2018-19 broadcast season without TV's top show and without a new series from Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy, Scandal) for the first time in years. Roseanne was expected to drive at least $60 million in ad revenue for its 11th season, according to Kantar Media. ABC, sources said, may have been on the hook for "tens of millions of dollars" after axing the series.
ABC on May 29 canceled Roseanne after Barr's racist tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama. The star, who has been an outspoken advocate for President Donald Trump, later apologized and said she "begged" Disney-ABC TV Group president Ben Sherwood not to cancel the series. (ABC declined comment on that at the time, though multiple sources within the network contend that conversation never happened and Barr has since deleted that tweet.)
In a memo to staff following the cancellation, Sherwood apologized to the then-unemployed staff of Roseanne and expressed hope that the network could find a way to work together down the road. The new incarnation of Roseanne saved those jobs as staffing season had already been completed for all the broadcast series and many involved with the production turned down other jobs to stay with the comedy.
Roseanne was slated to return in the fall for an expanded 11th season of 13 episodes as ABC looked to build on the show's momentum. In a victory lap of sorts, Barr was the centerpiece of ABC's upfront presentation to Madison Avenue ad buyers in May. (Barr joked in introducing Sherwood onstage that he was the man behind her Twitter feed.) The revival was part of a larger effort by Dungey — broadcast's lone African-American network topper — to cater to the underserved community who turned out in force to elect Trump. The success of the Roseanne revival has prompted other broadcast networks to pick up a wave of multicamera comedies in a larger push to program for middle America. (To that end, Fox revived Tim Allen comedy Last Man Standing a year after ABC's cancellation.)
‘Roseanne’ is returning, but without its namesake.
ABC has given a series order to “The Conners,” a spinoff starring original cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman. Not part of the new series will be Roseanne Barr, who played the matriarch on the long-running and recently revived — and more recently canceled — multi-camera comedy. Barr will, according to ABC, have no financial or creative involvement in the spinoff.
“I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from ‘Roseanne,'” Barr said in a statement. “I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.”
“The Conners” is slated to debut this fall and take over the 8 p.m. Tuesday time period that “Roseanne” had been slated to occupy until the show was abruptly canceled last month in response to a racist statement made on Twitter by Barr. Additional cast members and a premiere date will be announced at a later date.
Gilbert, Tom Werner, Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan, Bruce Rasmussen, and Tony Hernandez will serve as executive producers on the spinoff, which hails from Werner Entertainment.
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“We are grateful to have reached this agreement to keep our team working as we continue to explore stories of the Conner family,” Werner said in a statement.
“The Conners” is currently a working title for the spinoff, which has been given a 10-episode order. It is not known how Barr’s character will be written off the show.
“The Conners’ stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love. The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago,” an ABC spokesperson said in a statement.
The new order is for three episodes fewer than that given to the anticipated new season of “Roseanne.” In order to hit a fall premiere date, writers and producers will need to work on an expedited schedule. News of the show’s cancellation last month came on the same day that the writers room for the new season of “Roseanne” was scheduled to open. Though the new series will be able to take advantage of having crew in place, production will still be far behind that of other shows anticipated to premiere this fall.
In a joint statement released by ABC, cast members Goodman, Metcalf, Gilbert, Goranson, and Fishman said: “We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience. We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.”
Talks of a “Roseanne” spinoff began almost immediately after the series was canceled, then dragged on for more than two weeks following the abrupt end of what was last year’s highest rated television series in Nielsen’s 18-49 demo. Led by Gilbert, Werner, Helford, and ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, discussions centered on a pitch featuring Gilbert’s Darlene at the center of an ensemble that would include the show’s other key cast members. UTA, which represents Werner and Helford, and Gersh, which represents Gilbert, were also instrumental in moving spinoff talks along.
A major stumbling block, however, was Barr. ABC insisted that the comic receive no financial benefit from a spinoff. Because Barr was credited as creator of the Roseanne Conner character around whom the original series was built, she was believed to be entitled to a stake in any spinoff — even one in which that character was not involved. Sources tell Variety that Werner appealed to Barr to step away from the spinoff in support of the crew members who would be put out of work by the cancellation of “Roseanne.”
ABC announced May 29 that it had canceled “Roseanne” just hours after Barr published a racist tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Barack Obama. Barr subsequently apologized for the tweet, later blaming it on her consumption of the sleeping drug Ambien. But Dungey, the first African American to ever serve as president of a U.S. broadcast network, in a statement announcing the show’s cancellation said, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.” Barr later took to Twitter to lash out at fellow stars and producers, including Gilbert.
Barr had a long history of making offensive statements on Twitter prior to ABC’s decision last year to order a revival of the long-running family sitcom, which first aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997. In 2013, Barr on Twitter compared former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security advisor Susan Rice, also African American, to an ape. The week that the new iteration of “Roseanne” premiered, Barr made false statements on Twitter accusing mass-shooting survivor David Hogg of delivering a Nazi salute at an anti-gun violence rally.
“Roseanne” finished the 2017-18 television season as the No. 1 show in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers. Barr was featured prominently last month at the network’s joint upfront presentation with cable channel Freeform, where she introduced Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood. The comic and the exec embraced in an onstage hug, with Barr joking that Sherwood was “the guy responsible for most of my tweets.”
It was previously reported, that the network was actively pursuing a spinoff of sorts that would make Sara Gilbert's Darlene the de facto series of the comedy's latest iteration. Gilbert, chief architect of the successful revival who served as executive producer as well as star, returned home to Lanford as an unemployed, single mother of two kids.
Following Barr's offensive tweet, Gilbert took to Twitter to denounce her co-star's comments. "Roseanne's recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show," she wrote. "I am disappointed in her actions to say the least."
Barr initially took umbrage with Gilbert's comments, tweeting, "Wow! Unreal."
Gilbert addressed the cancellation during the first new taping of The Talk after the initial cancellation. "In addition to my statement, I would like to say this has been a very difficult week. A lot of people have been hurt by this. I will say I'm proud of the show we made. This show has always been about diversity, love and inclusion," Gilbert said. "And it's sad to see it end in this way. I'm sad for the people who lost their jobs in the process. However, I do stand behind the decision ABC made."
