One of the dumbest arguments, I thought, for NOT cancelling Roseanne was that “now none of those people will make any money.” Granted, I had some sympathy for the crew, but the show shot in LA and I feel pretty comfortable saying that most of the crew (if not all) will be able to find other work. As for the writers, producers and actors… I don’t have any sympathy or worries for them. Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf, John Goodman, Whitney Cummings – all of these people worked before Roseanne Barr and they’ll work after her. If anything, I sort of hate them for being so insistent that Roseanne should be rebooted, even though ALL of them knew that Roseanne Barr was and is a racist bigot. Still, those are the same people trying to figure out a way to make money by continuing the show, just without Roseanne Barr, or the Roseanne character.
“Roseanne” may be on the verge of rising from the dead with a second reboot, but this time centered around Sara Gilbert’s character … TMZ has learned. Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … the powers that be at ABC are exploring the possibility of re-branding the show and focusing on the character Darlene instead of Roseanne.
We’re told Sara’s been calling cast members to gauge their interest in the event ABC gives the reboot the green light. We’re told John Goodman is “very interested.” Our sources say Tom Werner, who produced “Roseanne” through his company Carsey-Werner, is involved in the effort to reboot the show around Sara. What’s more … ABC is desperately trying to salvage the jobs of those who were affected by its swift decision to cancel the show earlier this week … especially for the writers and crew.
[From TMZ]
I thought it was shady that TMZ was the first to report this, but the trade papers verified it – Deadline reports that Sara Gilbert and the show’s other producers will be meeting with Disney executives today to try to work out some kind of deal. The deal would involve renaming the show and focusing on Darlene (Gilbert) and Dan (Goodman). The problem is an issue of who really “owns” those characters, since the whole Roseanne concept/show was created and partially owned by Roseanne Barr. Which means that if a spinoff is greenlighted without Roseanne’s approval and blessing, she could sue Disney. It would be a mess.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I won’t watch.
Gilbert knew who Roseanne was and what she believes/tweets before SHE initiated this little revival. This was a nice little money maker for Gilbert so she looked the other way until Roseanne’s shit blew up. Shame on her for pretending to be horrified now. Gilbert is the worst kind of hypocrite.
I won’t watch it either but I read yesterday that Disney has contracts with Gilbert, Goodman, and Metcalf to pay them for a second season regardless if it happens or not. Close to 9 million total so I understand why they are scrambling to make something work.
If I were the actors in this transaction, I’d suggest an entirely different show, with different characters and no connection to Roseanne. They are good enough to watch in anything. That way they get the pleasure of working together again, America gets a different show, and Roseanne doesn’t get paid through a back alley.
I have 0 respect for this willfully obtuse chick. Go away, no one even wanted to see you in the first place.
Yeah, she needs to go away for a good long while.
Or get an original idea and develop that.
“wilfully obtuse” is officially the best insult for hipsters i’ve ever heard.
I’ll bet she is. There are very few roles for actors whose range includes only sullen, surly, and sarcastic.
It wasn’t a secret that Roseanne is who she is. Working with her in any capacity meant that 1) you were at least a little bit tainted by her, and 2) she’s caustic and will be treated as such (ie freaking fired for her unsurprisingly racist tweets).
Sara Gilbert must be hard up for money. That’s all I’m getting out of this.
Sara Gilbert is on the Talk. She shouldn’t need money nor should Laurie Metcalf or John Goodman.
I just had the same thought and checked the celebrity website that details their wealth. According to that site, Sara is worth a little over 16 mill.
Both Sara and Laurie have lucrative bit parts on The Big Bang Theory too. Just let sleeping dogs lie Sara…any new project would be tainted by association.
While I applaud SG for speaking, I think Roseanne probably was very vocal about her views on set. It seems as though too many folks are comfortable with racism or shi**y compromises as long as they don’t affect specific people. It’s best to let Roseanne and it’s various spin-offs die. Its like having a Cosby show spinoff at this point. The damage has been done and in SG’s case and some of her co-workers, there is an odor of complicity.
I agree, they will never be able to get out of Roseanne’s racist shadow. I feel like Gilbert should just drop it.
I wonder how the rest of the cast really feels about her trying to round everyone up?
Well, Whitney Cummings is also a racist, or at least a xenophobe, so working with Roseanne probably wasn’t that hard for her.
I don’t think the loss of jobs is the stupidest argument at all. I’m not for the idea of a spin-off and won’t watch, but I see the argument.
The “possibility of a job” doesn’t pay the bills.
There are plenty of set workers, not to mention the other actors, who now need to hunt for a job and have unpaid weeks because of one woman’s stupid irresponsible rant. Yeah, they will probably work again, but to have the rug pulled out was unfair regardless.
I agree Wiffie. Its not so easy to get a job and the crew still has to pay bills.
I agree Wiffie. I’m freelance in TV broadcasting and I was just released from a week of work. It was devastating. It’s thousands of dollars that I was hoping to make just suddenly gone and those days are unfilled. It’s a gig economy, those people who worked on set will eventually find other shows, but they’ve also turned down tons of work because they thought they had a year or two of stability. They aren’t salaried workers and get paid by the job. I work in the industry and it’s nothing to just blow off like “whatever, nbd” it’s a really big deal.
This is what I was thinking. They’ve lost thousands in future income. Plus, they’ve probably passed up other jobs in anticipation of steady work. I never feel sorry for the big name actors, but the people behind the scenes do suffer.
@Wilfie: Agreed. Just b/c crew workers may be living in L.A., does not mean that crew, writing, and other industry jobs are plentiful or easily come by. Surprised you don’t know that, Kaiser.
It would be cheaper for Disney just to pay workers for the balance of their contracts than to mount another show.
Disney may want to bury this show for good. It’s tainted.
They could probably take whatever they were going to pay Rosanne, give it to all of the crew for their next season’s pay, and probably still have money left over.
Yep, call it severance pay and be done.
I like your idea.
Yes, extending the deal they made with major actors to the other actors and crew would be the fairest resolution and ultimately the cheapest. Trying to cobble together a new show with the same characters minus the powder keg is ridiculous. Of course, I thought the reboot was pretty ridiculous considering how badly the original deteriorated over the years.
They were stupid to renew for another season as early as they did anyway.
Ugh, they just need to go away now. No one was really jonesing for their show to come back to begin with.
I don’t know how this works. If Roseanne helped create these characters, wouldn’t she be paid if these characters were used in a new show?
yeah I dont see how a spin off where she gets paid is any kind of punishment, just a paid vacation
Yes, that’s my thinking. Even if she wasn’t on the show, she’d get some kind of created by/producer credit. “Darlene” and “Dan” are characters she wrote and created.
WAIT!
I’ve a novel idea.
JUST DON’T.
Just stop.
I didn’t even see the point of the Roseanne reboot.
NOPE
It seems like it would be prohibitively (or at least, foolishly) expensive to try and re-launch the show with Darlene and Dan when Barr owns these characters to some degree (as I understand it). There’s no way she wouldn’t put up a massive fight and them you would bring down the wrath of her Klan apologists – you know, the ones they were pandering to a few weeks ago.
There are undoubtedly scores of people who are eager to forgive Gilbert and the rest of them for making excuses for working with her, but the bottom line is that they were all complicit in this mess and ABC should just call it done. Literally everyone but the child actors and the crew came out looking bad in this one.
No. Just, no. Everyone knew who and what Roseanne was and going along for a paycheck makes the other actors complicit.
ABC should pay out the crew (they’d spend that money on fighting a lawsuit or paying Roseanne for the rights to the characters anyway).
Let it go
It’s a loss no matter what.
Conservatives won’t watch because their icon was fired. They’ll rally around her next gig.
Liberals won’t watch because Barr has rights to the characters (assuming she doesn’t sue).
Those in the middle are not numerous enough to make it worth the trouble.
Move on.
Please, no.
I think we need more shows similiar to Roseanne, not the racist part obviously, but shows about what people are enduring and struggling with but with a sense of humour. Im tired of seeing well off people in tv shows, thats not real life for most people
Speechless, Superstore, Insecure, Shameless. All good shows, all with non-wealthy characters.
I tried watching superstore and shameless and hated both. Speechless is okay but Insecure is on HBO so i cant afford that lol.
There was The Middle but that ended(which it should on their own terms) there’s going to be a spinoff with Sue so she probably won’t be well off either.
Let the thing rest. It’s dead.
I can’t believe how this whole thing has made me feel about Gilbert. I never had many feelings for her one way or the other. Now I can’t stand her. Give it up Sara! My gawd she looks so desperate.
Trying to salvage the reputation because she made a really dumb move. Too late.
No thanks, let it go, it’s finished forever. I loved the first couple of years of the show, but then it wasn’t great and I no longer watched it. I didn’t even see a minute of the Roseanne reboot and I’m glad I didn’t. Even if Roseanne isn’t actually the spinoff, it still has something to do with Roseanne, and I will never have interest in watching it
I wonder if any of the commentators here has ever watched the original Roseanne series – because it was not a racist show, it was in contrast pretty progressive how the family dealt with their problems. So cancelling the reruns is not exactly a needed move. This reboot had an enormous connectivity potential for different social classes and it is sad how all of this turned out. So I can see, why all this people were willing to work with her. And what the actor of Dan Connor said: No matter who’s in the White House, this family always suffers – that is a point.
And well, Roseanne got cancelled in total, but what about the works of Kevin Spacey? Or Bill Cosby? What about reruns of 7th Heaven? So there is a double moral there. I do think, Mrs. Barr needed to face consequences, but this sort of consequences? Wouldn’t it have been sufficient to sue her to the oblivion and make her do social work?
I completely agree with your first paragraph. The original show was groundbreaking in a lot of ways when it first came out (Remember the gay wedding episode for example? That was a huge deal at the time). I’ve been watching the repeats in syndication recently and it’s completely held up. This reboot really could have been a great moment if Roseanne wasn’t such a horrible person.
I really enjoyed the original series, it was a good show.
Well said!
But I would actually be more inclined to watch the show if it focused on Jackie’s life, not Darlene. I watched the reboot and did not care about Darlene. But maybe it’s just better to let sleeping dogs lie….
Let it go. There’s too much baggage now.
Roseanne is a dirtbag, but the original show was pretty progressive, and what I’ve seen of the reboot has been as well. I honestly hope this isn’t all dead in the water because Roseanne herself is such an ass. I’d love to see more of Darlene and her family, especially with some Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman thrown in.
This is not the best idea. You can’t do a spinoff of Roseanne without Roseanne Barr benefiting because she is listed as a creator of the original show. They would need to create an entirely new premise for a show in the next few months, maybe even weeks, so that the scripts can be written and the episodes can be filled. And usually a new show has to do a pilot episode first and then have that tested before the additional episodes can be written and filmed. If they can accomplish all of that, then more power to them but I really don’t see it happening.
Ugh…they need to just let it go. Roseanne would end up benefiting from this financially and that’s not okay. Plus…as much as people hate to admit this, SHE IS THE SHOW. The chemistry would be way off. Remember when they did the show without Dan? It didn’t work then, and it won’t work without Roseanne either. Give it up Sara!
Gee is Sarah Gilbert really that desperate for money? Doesn’t she produce The Talk? Can’t she live on that? It’s a dead issue. The racists won’t watch it because ABC canned their goddess and I’m not sure anyone would watch a Roseanne extension show.
Please the characters are based on Roseanne herself so yeah that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. So not worth it.
If Roseanne owns the characters, then she will be paid for use of characters, even if she’s not on tv.
Sara should be working on a new show if she wants to work with that cast..
I actually enjoyed the Darlene character, and her interactions with Becky. So I might be interested in seeing a show focusing on those characters.
I do feel bad for the cast and crew…some of those actors didn’t have lasting careers, at least not as far as I can see. I’m thinking of the actors who played Becky and DJ. Now that the reruns are pulled off the air, they won’t be getting any residuals either. All because of a crazy woman’s ranting.
Roseanne ought to be out there seeking therapy and getting off of Twitter.
I agree with Megan.
Also,
I read all the comments and am definitely in the minority. I really enjoyed watching the other characters interact, so I would like to see the show continue without Roseanne. A lot of my affection for the show may probably just be nostalgia… I dunno. Roseanne herself is an incredible disappointment.
Disney already has several rip-off versions of popular 60s show airing now. ( Family Affair – Jessie , Patty Duke Show – Liv and Maddie) etc so they know their way around “ borrowing” intellectual properties.
I’ve never watched Roseanne so I honestly don’t know, but does it make sense to have that particular show without her? I’ve always assumed most people watched Roseanne because of Roseanne, and even if they like other character, not having her in the cast makes the show kind of pointless. Why can’t these actors maybe come up with a new show that’s using these same characters?
Not that it makes any difference to the fact that Roseanne is beyond the pale and no one should have signed up for this, but…
…I wonder if this is a case of “racist uncle” for some of them, i.e. “racist uncle” being that family member who is tolerated for all kinds of complex-yet-dubious “the people I love love him” and/or “I love him but disapprove” and/or “he’ll die pretty soon anyway; why cause a rift now” reasons.
A racist’s racism can be invisible when they’re not around people of colour. And they can be extremely lovely to certain individuals, including people of colour who they have–for whatever reason–decided are okay. It makes it hard for others in their orbit to draw the line, because they’ve seen this person at their best, too, not just at their crappiest.
It’s possible some of the “Connor” kids still have complex, affectionate feelings for Roseanne left over from their childhoods. They may have hoped “racist uncle” was going to behave herself long enough for everyone to enjoy their well-paid, season-long family dinner.
They should have put their nostalgia in the closet and taken a hard look at that burned gingerbread men/Hitler photoshoot Roseanne did a few years ago. This clusterfuck was not without foreshadowing.
I’ve lost respect for them for appearing in the reboot in the first place.