Nancy Drew is one of the most popular children’s mystery franchises, following the adventures of a teen sleuth solving crimes left and right. A poorly received movie was already made, and CBS tried to get a series off the ground in 2016. Now that same team from 2016 is trying again, but this time for NBC.
Doubt creators Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, producer Dan Jinks and CBS TV Studios will be bringing back this crime-solver, but in an unexpected way. Rather than exploring her teen years, Nancy will now be in her 40s, trying to reconnect with her best friends after she alienated them. See, Nancy wrote all about her famous crime-solving with her two best friends, but they don’t like how they were characterized as sidekicks. However, they get over their differences in order to keep solving cases together.
“[Their age] we think is their superpower; no one notices them when they walk in. It’s a way for them to fly under the radar,” Rater tells Deadline. “They talk about how they feel unseen.”
Whether or not this series will be picked up, and if so for which season, the idea of aging or otherwise altering of classic characters is back in style. After all, Riverdale proves that the model can work when it’s done right.