Early Edition Reboot Will Star Alice Eve As A Journalist Who Gets Tomorrow's News Today
The "Early Edition" reboot pilot at CBS has found its lead in "Freelancers" and "Star Trek: Into Darkness" star Alice Eve. According to Variety, the actress will star in the series as an intrepid journalist who magically gets tomorrow's news delivered today. The original version of the series followed Kyle Chandler ("Friday Night Lights") as a man who had the next day's edition of the Chicago Sun-Times delivered to him by a mysterious cat, but there's no word on whether or not the reboot will also feature a fantastical feline friend.
A time-traveling newspaper?
The idea of getting a newspaper with tomorrow's news on it is kind of strange, but it becomes even more complicated for a journalist. After all, she's supposed to report the news after it happens, not predict it beforehand! If the news is bad or possibly even tragic, should she try to change the "news" before it happens, or does that mess with her journalistic integrity?
Eve's journalist character will be named Beth, and she's described as "ambitious but uncompromising" and has been interested in being an investigative reporter since she was a child. She wants to get her story, regardless of the danger or potential cost. That sometimes causes friction between her and her mentor, Tommy, who believes that the most important thing about a story is the people and how they're affected. But Beth hasn't quite figured out how that factors into her own investigative journalism style just yet. It sounds like Beth is trying to be a Lois Lane type who chases after a story like detectives chase after a criminal, but how that will factor into Beth's magical newspaper remains to be seen.
The pilot will be written and executive produced by Melissa Glenn ("Falling Skies"). The original series ran for four seasons on CBS before ending in 2000.
"Early Edition" isn't the only reboot or sequel series in the works from a classic show. As networks scramble to compete with streaming, shows like "Law and Order" and "Quantum Leap" are getting the reboot treatment, and NBC's Peacock is rebooting the John Hughes film "Sixteen Candles" as a TV series starring Selena Gomez. Everything old is new again, folks. Maybe one of Beth's newspapers can show us a reboot of "Dinosaurs," please and thank you? That or an NBC/CBS crossover where Scott Bakula leaps into "Early Edition" and they try to figure out how to stop tomorrow's murder or something. If we're going to bring it all back, why not get weird with it?