Well, it seems that now that ‘New Girl’ is coming to an end this Spring, actress Hannah Simone is moving on, and UP! She has been cast in ABC’s reboot of ‘The Greatest American Hero,’ becoming the first woman of color to play a superhero lead on a live-action network TV series.
The show is a gender-swapped version of the original 1981-1983 ‘Greatest American Hero,’ which starred William Katt as the lovable but clueless superhero Ralph Hinkley, with that catchy “Believe It Or Not” theme song. In the new version, Simone will be playing a 30-year old woman named Meera, a fun loving gal who loves tequila and karaoke and has spent most of her life looking for some kind of meaning to it all, before being granted a supersuit that grants fantastic powers to whoever wears it, the catch being that it does not also imbue its wearer with instructions on how to use those powers. The show is being produced by 20th Century Fox TV with executive producers Rachna Fruchbom, Nahnatchka Khan (both from ‘Fresh Off the Boat’) and Mandy Summers, with ABC Studios co-producing.
The new ‘Greatest American Hero’ is one of many reboots coming up this pilot season, including new versions of past TV hits ‘Murphy Brown,’ Charmed,’ and ‘Magnum PI,’ though few have the potential that this one does, with such a charming lead, a genre ripe for comedy (if ABC can manage to get it right this time), and such a progressive move in gender-swapping the lead character, which seems like such a no-brainer when you have a talent like Simone available to play the lead. Here’s hoping that the ‘The Greatest American Hero’ lives up to its heroic title, and manages to charm audiences and critics alike during the coming season.
Feel free to share your thoughts on Simone’s casting and the show itself in the comments section below!
Source: TV Line
