Just when you thought there was no way that Kenya Barris could create another black-ish spinoff, ABC confirms that he is currently developing a new project with Eva Longoria for brown-ish, which would be centered around a modern-day Latinx family.
“Brown-ish is still a concept that is in development, we haven’t rolled out the firm plans around that yet,” Walt Disney Co., Hulu Originals chief Craig Erwich told Deadline.
“On old-ish, we have no current plans to make it as a pilot,” he continued, referencing the spinoff the network built around Laurence Fishburne and Jenifer Lewis’ characters on the mothership series.
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“When we talk about the world of black-ish, there are so many different iterations that we are open to; it’s really up to Kenya who is the master and the captain of the franchise,” Erwich said of the prolific Emmy-nominated comedy series which is headed into its eighth and final season.
Now that “Black-ish” is coming to an end, Erwich says he wants to “event-ize” the final season of Barris’ hit show, which will debut mid-season for an uninterrupted sendoff.
“We felt by putting it at mid-season, it would give us more continuous runs, more episodes, that the concentration of those episodes would really give us something tangible to event-ize, and to honor,” said Erwich. “The show deserves to be platformed and have a spotlight put on it, given its contributions to our culture and to our company.”
It’s worth noting that the prolific series has already spawned two successful spinoff series, first Freeform’s grown-ish, which is the No.1 live-action comedy on basic cable among adults 18-34, and most recently mixed-ish, which aired on ABC for two seasons.
Mental health matters
As we previously reported, in addition to dominating the small screen, Barris also recently signed up to appear in a Mental Health Storytelling Summit with Trevor Noah and several other notables.
Part of MTV Entertainment Group‘s Mental Health Is Health initiative, the Better Together: Mental Health Storytelling Summit was announced in an effort to address the integral part storytelling can play in mental health.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the summit led by ViacomCBS had a mission to “galvanize an industry-wide movement, empowering content creators to expand portrayals of mental health that encourage viewers to speak up and get help.”
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The three-day virtual summit which took place from May 3 -5, featured a slew of celebrities and public figures. Some of the other talent in attendance at the summit included, Charlamagne tha God, Regina Hall, H.E.R., Lisa Ling, Nika King, Delroy Lindo, Romany Malco, Miguel, Kevin Powell and more.
Bob Bakish, the CEO of ViacomCBS, opened up about the summit in a statement: “Media has enormous influence over how we collectively perceive and understand the most difficult issues in our society. The mental health crisis impacts people of all demographics and geographies, and as content creators, it’s our responsibility to use our assets – through our stories, platforms and reach – to take action. Our ability to come together as an industry to meaningfully shift the narrative around mental health can transform the lives of people everywhere.”
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