The Avengers is getting a reboot! And no, we’re not talking about the Marvel property. We’re talking about the British TV series that originally aired for six seasons back in the ’60s (from 1961 to 1969, to be exact), running for a total of 161 episodes. Deadline reports that the new take on The Avengers TV series is coming our way from StudioCanal, which owns the rights to The Avengers catalog. Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the writing team behind the HBO/BBC series Industry, have written the script for the pilot episode and Sex Education director Ben Taylor is on board to direct and executive produce. The Warner Bros. Discovery production company Wall to Wall is co-producing the project with StudioCanal.
Despite rumors that the Avengers reboot could end up on HBO, it’s not clear which network or streamer the new show will end up calling home. The HBO rumors have been denied.
Deadline notes that The Avengers was “known for being glamorous, surreal, and often fanciful. The series became an escapist romp for millions of viewers, merging the spy tropes of James Bond with sci-fi elements of Doctor Who.” The series focused on the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners.
Steed was played by Patrick Macnee, while his assistants included Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale, Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, and Linda Thorson as Tara King. Macnee reprised the role of Steed for a two season, 26 episode revival called The New Avengers in 1976 – ’77. On that show, he was partnered with Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit and Joanna Lumley as Purdey. In 1998, we got a feature film reboot of The Avengers that starred Ralph Fiennes as John Steed, Uma Thurman as Emma Peel, and Sean Connery as Sir August de Wynter, a mad scientist who wanted to control the world’s weather. As Deadline reminds us, “It was a notorious flop that was savaged by critics and failed to break even on its $60M budget.”
Iron Man 3 director Shane Black and his The Monster Squad and The Predator writing partner Fred Dekker were working on a TV reboot of The Avengers for Warner Bros. back in 2018, but their take on the concept didn’t make it into production.
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