Lets say that a network gave a Charmed reboot the greenlight, which means it's going to happen no matter what, and you were in charge of casting and story (rather it's a remake with the same characters, or reimagining, or a sequel type based reboot set in the future, etc.). Who would you cast?
shareOmg so many to choose from!! But I would prefer someone in their mid-late twenties playing their own age and not too beautiful. Like the PLL cast. No one looks like that. And by God do not make the characters teenagers or young adults. Im actually very open to different actors as long as they make it a dark fantasy drama show about sisters that happened to be witches, and not roommates that has a sexy costume on each week and happen to be related, and keep it like that, Im good
share*nods* I can agree with all of that. I'd want them with different names (can't imagine anyone else playing Prue, Piper and Phoebe) and in a different city so there wouldn't be an automatic desire to compare the two series, usually the death of a reboot/remake (different fans have different definitions for those two words).
The only place I disagree is not having them be young adults - definitely no teenagers please, but if they're older, you'd almost have to have one of them have children and then the show becomes as bad as the last four seasons of Charmed where Piper's family became the prime focus with Phoebe and Paige as much supporting characters as Darryl. I'd always want the three sisters to star - not their men and not their children.
I wouldn't want whitelighters (or if there were, only in the first season) or Elders. And I'd most definitely not want them to be able to have children - they're dead, so treat them that way!
I'd also want the sisters to have different powers, but still not ones that can kill like Piper's explosions, so they'd have to work together. Just those changes would make it different enough to not be exactly like the original.
I'd also want warlocks to remain the antagonists of the series - but have it so that the same way that witches who do evil become warlocks (so the Charmed Ones in Season 6 and Season 8 are warlocks, not witches, the main reason I hate those seasons...), warlocks who do good (like Brendan Rowe) become witches. So I'd want any Cole character to be a warlock, not a half-demon (no such thing...)
Demons, I'd want to only be the Demon of, the way Angels are only the Angels of (with demons showing up as often as the angels do) and no such thing as the Source of All Evil - that's something that can never be vanquished so makes no sense to be part of the show.
Speaking of vanquish, I'd want it to *mean* vanquish - once a baddie is vanquished, s/he can *not* EVER come back, the same way when people die they only come back when summoned and only come back as GHOSTS, not corporeal ones, except for *very* special reasons - and when they're ghosts, they stay inside the circle, just to advise, never to do.
Finally, I'd want 'innocents' to mean those who are innocent of the existence of magic and *that* to always be the sisters' destiny - to protect them from those who would use magic for evil. So this means the sisters can use their magic however they want (no such thing as no personal gain) - as long as it doesn't expose the existence of magic to the public.
I'll let someone else decide who they'd want to play the parts - I don't watch enough new shows to have an opinion about that (just no movie actors, so Rose McGowan would've never been considered), but if they did these things, I think that would give a reboot/remake the best chance of succeeding - and actually ending up being better than the original.
I don't know who I'd cast, but it'd be three fresh-faced girls that have been in little-to-nothing so far. They'd probably be in their very late teens or early twenties. College-aged, basically.
As for other things:
1) No other relatives. At all. The only family that they have are each other.
2) No chasing after men / trying to get men.
3) No children.
4) No visits to Elderland (was it ever given an actual name?) or the Underworld. Let what exists in the "great beyond" remain a mystery, just as it is in real life.
5) No magic school.
6) No time travel.
7) No dimension hopping.
8) No demons.
9) No Whitelighters.
10) No ghosts. The dead stay dead. The only possible visitations would be in dreams, and those would be open to interpretation.
11) No indications that magic is actually real. In other words, no physical powers that can be demonstrated before your eyes. All magic would be done in rituals (whether small or elaborate), and then the outcome would insinuate whether it "worked" or not. Yeah, as if you couldn't tell, this would be the single biggest change in my reboot: a complete lack of Hollywood witchery.
12) No season-long story arcs. People rarely deal with a single issue for many months at a time. A recurring issue might pop up for a while, though.
13) 13 episodes per season. No back 9.
14) Netflix or some other streaming service, so cursing and nudity would be allowed.
15) Incorporate actual Wicca into the series. A Book of Shadows would be personal, not THE Book of Shadows. Each sister would have her own. The sisters celebrate the esbats and sabbats.
16) The sisters have a pet cat, who is also their familiar.
17) They might receive "visits" from dead relatives - or even the Goddess Herself - in dreams. These would be ambiguous and open to interpretation.
18) Possible theme songs: "These Dreams" by Heart, "The Dream Within" by Lara Fabian
So, basically, what my reboot would be like is:
Three sisters live together, hang out together, and navigate life, and they happen to be witches; they lean on their faith and each other to help them through.
Mark Moore
The Unofficial Captain N Home Page
Online since 02/27/97
http://ldloveszh.tripod.com
So you want a new Charmed show, which is not a Charmed show?
So why even bother rebooting in the first place if it had to follow your recipe?
I do agree on a few terms though such as no children and no magic school, but seriously: No Demons?
You do realize that every show that followed Charmed and Buffy about the supernatural, all actually have demons in each episode?
They do just not directly call them demons. Instead they don't call them anything at all or they chose to refer to their demonic species instead.
You do realize that Charmed only had "The Demons of" until Brad Kern took over - the main antagonists were warlocks, not demons, which made so much more sense since warlocks were witches who had killed (the reason I count the S6 and S8 Charmed Ones as warlocks for soul-raping Darryl, setting up Rick Guttridge to be murdered and for murdering the Jenkinses.)
That would be how you could get away with not having demons.
Otherwise I agree totally - I don't think this person wants the show to be anything like Charmed, so why consider it a reboot? Unless the only similarity was having three sisters who happened to be witches...which might actually be the best way to do it.
Just not sure what sort of plot you could have with everything that's been taken out. This person told us what they didn't want, not what they did.
What I want is something different than what you got.
Basically, the sisters have their various jobs and have to deal with work life - as well as the highs and lows of living together. Maybe they attend college and have to deal with stuff there. Maybe Kit Kat brings friends into the house, who eat all of the cat food. Maybe she gets sick and needs to be taken to the vet.
The witchcraft would be a spiritual component of their lives, and we see them practicing it whenever. Eight episodes of the season could take place during a sabbat (but not be completely ABOUT celebrating the sabbat), and another one could deal with a full moon esbat celebration.
Mark Moore
The Unofficial Captain N Home Page
Online since 02/27/97
http://ldloveszh.tripod.com
I'd make Charmed a more coherant story based show.
Keep the fun, family and dramatic aspect but have a season long mystery that's fleshed out. Keep their powers simple so that each villain they have to come up with ways to defeat them instead of "piper blow Him up".
Instead of 22 episodes, keep it 13.