'Finding Forrester' TV Series Being Developed By NBC Now, Dog

Finding Forrester – the movie that gave birth to "You're the man now, dog!" – is headed to TV. NBC is developing a Finding Forrester TV series based on the 2000 Gus Van Sant movie about a reclusive J.D. Salinger-like writer who mentors a Black teenager from a prestigious private high school. The late Sean Connery starred in the movie along with Rob Brown. The TV adaptation will change things around a bit, turning the reclusive white male writer into a Black lesbian author.

Remember Finding Forrester? If you do, I'm willing to bet good money that the most you remember about the film is that it gave birth to the "You're the man now, dog!" meme. The 2000 movie was Gus Van Sant's big follow-up to his Oscar-winning hit Good Will Hunting, but it failed to have as much impact as that 1997 Matt Damon/Robin Williams movie. Although it wasn't a box office bomb by any means – it grossed $80 million on a $43 million budget – it hasn't had the same cultural staying power as Good Will Hunting. But that's not stopping NBC from turning Finding Forrester into a TV series.

In the original movie, "A unique relationship develops between an eccentric, reclusive novelist and a young, amazingly gifted scholar-athlete. After the novelist discovers that the young athlete is also an excellent writer and secretly takes him on as his protégé, they develop an unlikely friendship. As they learn more about each other, they learn more about themselves, and ultimately, with the help of his new mentor, the basketball star must choose the right path."

According to Deadline, the TV adaptation hails from writers TJ Brady and Rasheed Newson, director Tim Story, NBA star Stephen Curry and his Unanimous Media, and Sony Pictures Television. The series will keep the mentor/mentee angle while also changing things up a bit:

The TV adaptation, written by Brady and Newson and to be directed by Story, is changing up the mentor character, played in the movie by Connery. The series examines the cost of success and the price of redemption through the unique bond between two gifted black writers: a homeless 16-year-old orphan who leverages his basketball skills to hustle his way into an ultra-competitive elite boarding school and a reclusive lesbian author whose career was ruined by a public scandal.

While I'm not sure people are exactly clamoring for a Finding Forrester TV series, changing the mentor character to a Black woman certainly gets rid of the "white savior" trope the original film succumbed to.