Deadline hears that StudioCanal, which owns the rights to The Avengers catalog, has been quietly plotting a reboot for some time and a pilot has been written. Warner Bros. Discovery production outfit Wall to Wall is co-producing.Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the writing team behind hit HBO/BBC series Industry, have breathed new life into Patrick Macnee’s debonair secret agent John Steed and his glamorous sidekicks. Sex Education director Ben Taylor is also a co-creator. Taylor will direct the series and executive produce.There were rumors that the project was in with HBO, but this was denied last year. It is not clear where The Avengers reboot will land. StudioCanal declined to comment as talks continue.Launching in 1961, the cult TV series ran for six seasons on ITV and later ABC in the U.S., where it was one of the first British shows to be acquired for primetime by an American networkMacnee starred as Steed, who fought off diabolical plots against the state with his trademark bowler hat and umbrella. He had a succession of high-fashion assistants played by the likes of Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman. They broke ground for being Steed’s equal, holding their own in brawls and delivering playful quips.Known for being glamorous, surreal, and often fanciful, the series became an escapist romp for millions of viewers, merging the spy tropes of James Bond with sci-fi elements of Doctor Who.The Avengers was remade into a film in 1998 with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in the lead roles. It was a notorious flop that was savaged by critics and failed to break even on its $60M budget.Since then, there have been other attempts to revisit the brand. Iron Man 3 director Shane Black revealed in 2018 that he and writing partner Fred Dekker were penning a pilot for a Warner Bros. TV series.
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