"Family Matters"' star Bryton James reveals plan for animated reboot with original cast is still 'floating around'
Craig Sjodin/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty In an age of reboots, prequels, sequels, and spinoffs,Bryton Jameshas a novel plan for bringingFamily Mattersback: switching up the medium. The actor, who spent eight seasons playing adolescent Richie Crawford on the beloved sitcom, tellsEntertainment Weeklyexclusively that he's "had an idea to take the show and turn it into an animated series," which would involve "taking the old episodes and modernizing them and kind of starting from scratch for the new generation." James — whorecently crossed overfromThe Young and the Restlessto the soap's new sister seriesBeyond the Gates— says that he "got pretty far along" with his animatedFamily Mattersidea, including getting "a production company in line to finance" and bringing "everybody on board," even breakout starJaleel White. But, he adds, "it's sitting inWarner Bros.' hands right now… That plan is still kind of floating around out there, and I'm still trying to pursue it." A source familiar with Warner Bros. Animation tells EW that they are aware of James' interest in doing a reboot but the project has not moved beyond that. ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Representatives for Warner Bros. TV didn't immediately respond toEntertainment Weekly's request for comment. Family Mattersaired for nine seasons, from 1989 to 1998. The comically heartfelt look at the lives of the Winslows, a middle-class Black family living in Chicago, helped launch the careers ofReginald VelJohnson, who played Winslow patriarch Carl; White, who played pesky neighbor Steve Urkel; and James, who played Carl's nephew. Sign up forEntertainment Weekly's free daily newsletterto get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more. Several members of the coreFamily Matterscast have died in the years since, including Michelle Thomas (Myra Monkhouse), who died from a rare cancer just months after the series finale aired, and Rosetta LeNoire (Estelle Winslow), who died of complications from diabetes in 2002. But James says it wasn't hard to get the rest of the cast on board with his reboot idea, especially since a 2018 reunion helped "put me back in touch with a lot of the cast that I'd kind of fallen off from." He adds, "I still very much keep in touch with Telma Hopkins, who played my mom... [Darius McCrary], who played Eddie Winslow, I just saw [Kellie Shanygne Williams, who played Laura], a lot of them are living — I think [Jo Marie Payton] and Kellie are living on the East Coast, so they came out for Telma's birthday a few years back and I got to see them again. Jaleel, I've kept in touch with him off and on, a great mentor at this point in my life." As for why James thought to go the animated route rather than a traditional sequel series like theSex and the Cityfollow-upAnd Just Like Thator theBig Bang Theoryprequel riffYoung Sheldon, the actor explains, "I just remember these episodes, some of the storylines they'd come up with for Urkel, you know, I remember when he created a tornado in the kitchen one time. So they kind of bordered on fantasy, and you could really take the show into animation and have us voice our characters again." Needing only to capture the original cast's voices, not assemble them for traditional production, also means "we wouldn't have to all be in the same city to come together again to be on camera." James adds with a laugh, "Jaleel wouldn't have to put the outfit on either, and we could still deliver what the show did for the audience and for families especially, and revamp it for the new generation." In White's 2024 memoir,Growing Up Urkel, said that he'dalready said no to a rebootpitched to him byFamily Mattersproducer Bob Boyett. The series would've seen his Urkel and longtime crush Laura finally get married and have a kid, Steve Urkel Jr., who would've been the focus. "I turned it down for several reasons," White wrote. "The script would have been the same, and the show's dynamics no longer work in the world that we live in." He instead pitched something semiautobiographical: "We cast a good actor and a smart kid to play Jaleel, a twelve-year-old from Pasadena who lands the part of Steve Urkel. We depict all the challenges that came with growing up in the nineties and being the kid who played that character. The show could explore the dynamic between me and my parents, struggling to adapt to fame while trying to live regular lives." That series never came to pass. As for James, he believes there are "fans ofFamily Matters[who] would be interested" in his version, which he hopes would allow the show to be "brought back to life in a new, fresh way." Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
"Family Matters"' star Bryton James reveals plan for animated reboot with original cast is still 'floating around' Cra...
