‘Heroes’ To Return As ‘Heroes Reborn’ [Video]

Yep, you read that right. Perhaps motivated by the massive mainstream success of pretty much every other superhero franchise in existence, US network NBC has commissioned a new 13-episode “event” series by Heroes creator Tim Kring. They’re calling it Heroes Reborn and, while they’ve kept silent about details, they’ve put the tiniest teaser up for you to get excited over.

See what I mean?

 

The success of the original show lay largely on its brilliant and perfectly timed capitalization on mainstream interest in superhero stories before studios were pouring even more money into their ongoing promotion and execution on our big screens. Heroes eventually lost its audience (it lost me in season 2 actually) during the US writers strike of 2008, and also by refusing to let the characters progress swiftly into a new arc. It remains to be seen if they can recapture the original season’s magic but there’s a good chance that, if they’ve allowed the intervening years to move the plot forward for them a little, we could see something great on TV. In earlier episodes, the show always balanced its budgetary constraints quite well but later episodes didn’t deliver on the promise of epic climactic fights, making it unsatisfying to watch again knowing it’s basically going nowhere.

Will Heroes Reborn be any good? Who can say?

Slashfilm ran the original story along with some more press from the network, including this statement by NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke.

“The enormous impact ‘Heroes’ had on the television landscape when it first launched in 2006 was eye-opening,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke. “Shows with that kind of resonance don’t come around often and we thought it was time for another installment. We’re thrilled that visionary creator Tim Kring was as excited about jumping back into this show as we were and we look forward to all the new textures and layers Tim plans to add to his original concept. Until we get closer to air in 2015, the show will be appropriately shrouded in secrecy, but we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.”