{"id":6129,"date":"2016-05-19T15:08:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T19:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/"},"modified":"2016-05-19T17:34:50","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T21:34:50","slug":"remaking-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Remaking Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

For eight consecutive nights in January 1977, some 80 million people tuned in to ABC in prime time to follow a family saga that began in West Africa and journeyed through the darkest times in American history. Based on Alex Haley\u2019s ancestral novel about Kunta Kinte, an African man sold into slavery, Roots<\/em> made ratings history. Its finale is still one of the most-watched episodes ever, with some 100 million viewers. And it swept the Emmys that year, winning nine out of 37 nominations.<\/p>\n

On May 30, HISTORY will premiere an ambitious new version of Roots<\/em>, with a star-studded cast that includes Laurence Fishburne, Anna Paquin, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Matthew Goode, Forest Whitaker and Anika Noni Rose. The new Roots <\/em>is being executive produced by Mark Wolper, whose father, David Wolper, exec produced the original, and LeVar Burton, who captivated audiences in 1977 as Kunta Kinte.<\/p>\n

Wolper said he was initially resistant to requests to remake the series. \u201cI was afraid to try to mount this project again. It was too successful the first time. It\u2019s in the shadow of my father and what he accomplished. [Given] what\u2019s going on in the world today socially, [I felt that] for me to do this project would be complex and difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

That mindset changed four years ago, when Wolper got his then 16-year-old to watch the original series. \u201cIt was very difficult for him to watch,\u201d Wolper says. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t connecting with it. He didn\u2019t want to watch it. He wanted to leave the room. I forced him to watch the whole thing. At the end of it he said, \u2018I understand why Roots<\/em> is important, but Dad, it\u2019s like your music\u2014it doesn\u2019t speak to me.\u2019 It was at that moment that I realized, I\u2019ve got to buck up and take the risk of trying to tell the story for all the people like him that need to hear the story again, that need to understand this, that need to find a way to connect with the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Wolper, there were two key elements to consider when determining how to retell this story. \u201cI always used my son as the prototype for who I was trying to reach. I knew we had to produce it technically better than the first one because we have the capacity to do so: better cameras, better sound equipment, better makeup, better lights. I knew we had the capacity to tell it in a manner that is more common today: a faster pace, a faster style, more intense, more honest in its portrayal than it could be 40 years ago. And I knew we had better historical information than was available to Alex Haley. These were the three critical things [we needed] so we could connect with a young audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAINTAINING A LEGACY<\/strong>
\nRoots<\/em> was the first major role for Burton. He too was initially hesitant about remaking such an iconic and deeply loved show. \u201cI was afraid of stepping on and muddying the legacy,\u201d he says. \u201cThen Mark shared with me his very personal story of trying to show Roots<\/em> to his son, and I [understood] immediately why it needed to be done. In that moment I said that if I had the opportunity I would want to be involved. I had two choices: I could stand on the sidelines and judge the effort or I could get involved and try to contribute and make it as good as it could possibly be. It\u2019s been an amazing journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Burton\u2019s involvement in the new Roots<\/em> included helping to cast the role he made famous. Like Burton himself when he was tapped as Kunte Kinte, Malachi Kirby is a relative newcomer for American audiences. The British actor has starred in a number of TV series, including several episodes of EastEnders<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Asked about how he approached the casting process, Burton says, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t difficult for me emotionally to surrender the character of Kunta to Malachi at all once we found him and I was convinced that he was the right actor for the role. Once you see the heart of this man, you will understand why he got this job. I feel like he\u2019s a combination of a son and a younger brother in my life. He\u2019s done an extraordinary job. He committed fully. He gave his all to this role and it\u2019s all on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls<\/em>, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency<\/em>) stars in Roots<\/em> as Kinte\u2019s daughter, Kizzy, who is separated from her parents at 16 when she is sold to another plantation. To prepare for the role, Rose said she did plenty of historical research. However, \u201cBeing in the South and of the South\u2014I\u2019m not from there but I have family from there\u2014the story never feels so far away. There are so many things that have continued, whether it\u2019s the food, the cultural things we have kept with us within the church, how we interact with each other. These people don\u2019t feel like strangers when I approach them on the page. That\u2019s a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose, who initially auditioned for a different part in Roots<\/em>, said she requested a meeting with Mark at the outset to understand his motivations for making the series. \u201cI wanted to know what his spirit was about. What was this going to be? Was it going to be a commercial outlet taking advantage of the cry for diversity or was it going to be a truthful story told from an honest place? It wasn\u2019t until I had the meeting and spoke to Mark and to the director and was assured that this was being told from a place of responsibility that I looked at it in a different way and thought, This is something that will be interesting to me. I\u2019m not interested in taking advantage of a story. But I\u2019m most assuredly interested in telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

A NEW AGE<\/strong>
\nWolper, Burton and Rice acknowledge that the world today is very different from the one we lived in in 1977, when families sat down together in front of a single screen for a shared viewing experience. Nevertheless, they are hopeful it can still have a powerful cultural impact, especially in the age of social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe the viewing of Roots<\/em> is an opportunity for families to sit down together,\u201d Burton says. \u201cI hope that [happens]. I anticipate that people who are watching will go to a second screen and they will have a conversation. That\u2019s a good thing. I don\u2019t know if we could ever expect to garner the many millions that watched the original Roots<\/em>. But we have an opportunity with an international audience to have maybe more people watch Roots <\/em>this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, A+E Networks launched the show at MIPTV with the World Premiere Screening and many of its feeds around the world will be doing a day-and-date rollout with the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the same way that we had to produce this differently for the audience of today, we have to accept and embrace the way people want to consume it now, and not shy away from it and not expect it\u2019s going to be like the old one,\u201d Wolper says. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to be the old one, we\u2019re the new one. Consume it how you want to consume it, as long as you do and you speak about it and understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burton adds that in many ways, when it comes to launch strategy, the producers of Roots<\/em> in 2016 are in the same position as those who made Roots<\/em> in 1977. \u201cNobody knew how the audience was going to respond to Roots<\/em>. It was broadcast on eight consecutive nights because [ABC] figured if nobody watched they\u2019d be over and done with it in a week\u2019s time. No one knew it would go on to become this huge juggernaut, this social phenomenon that captivated the nation and went on to be incredibly successful around the world. They didn\u2019t know. We don\u2019t either. We\u2019ve told the best story we know how to tell. And now we have to let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose believes families will be drawn to Roots<\/em> as a shared experience, given its subject matter. \u201cPeople don\u2019t even eat dinner together anymore, but when families feel that something is for a family, they come together. This is a family story. Streaming has changed a lot of things, but when people are called to something, they come. Hopefully this will be a clarion call to people to sit together with their children and their parents and grandparents and talk about it and allow it to be a teachable thing. And not in a didactic way, but in a way that your heart is moved and your mind is moved and you learn something that you didn\u2019t know because it\u2019s not in a school book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Rose says, the saga captured in Roots<\/em>, while based on a specific time in American history, \u201cis everybody\u2019s story. Those ships left a continent and went everywhere. This story belongs to everyone. Somewhere in your history, you know what it was to be denied humanity. That is universal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Executive producers Mark Wolper and LeVar Burton and actress Anika Noni Rose offer up an inside look at the brand-new Roots. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":6130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[460],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","tag-roots","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nRemaking Roots - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Remaking Roots - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Executive producers Mark Wolper and LeVar Burton and actress Anika Noni Rose offer up an inside look at the brand-new Roots.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-19T19:08:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-19T21:34:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/Roots_AENetworks.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/\",\"name\":\"Remaking Roots - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-05-19T19:08:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-05-19T21:34:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/remaking-roots\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Remaking Roots\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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