Female-Led Kung Fu Reboot, Former Sarah Drew Vehicle Get CW Pilot Orders
Having already ordered Superman & Lois and its Walker, Texas Ranger reboot straight to series for the 2020-21 TV season, The CW has ordered pilots for a Kung Fu reboot and The Republic of Sarah, a series that was originally developed a year ago at CBS.
Penned by Blindspot EP and former Lost scribe Christina M. Kim, Kung Fu tells the story of how a quarter-life crisis causes a young Chinese-American woman to drop out of college and go 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.
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Inspired by the original Kung Fu series starring David Carradine and created by Ed Spielman, it also counts Martin Gero, Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter as EPs.
The Republic of Sarah, penned by Jeffrey Paul King (Elementary), was originally cast and piloted at CBS last spring, with Grey’s Anatomy doc Sarah Drew as the lead. The CW’s version tweaks the premise slightly: Instead of Drew’s mayor, now it’s rebellious high school teacher Sarah Cooper who uses an obscure cartographical loophole to declare that her imperiled town is an independent nation. “Now Sarah must lead a young group of misfits as they attempt to start their own country from scratch,” according to the official description.
The CBS Television Studios project counts Marc Webb, Mark Martin and Fulwell 73’s Jeff Grosvenor and Leo Pearlman among its EPs.
Two more pilots still remain in contention for The CW’s 2020-21 primetime slate: Arrow spinoff Green Arrow & The Canaries, and a prequel to The 100, now titled Anaconda.
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