With ABC's hugely lauded 1977 adaptation of Roots officially ranking as the third most-watched TV event of all time, it's a brave team that would attempt a remake. That's precisely what's about to happen, however: A&E Networks have just announced a new four-episode / eight-hour version of Alex Haley's novel, of which Phillip Noyce and Thomas Carter will direct an episode each (the two further directors have yet to be announced).
Haley's Roots: The Saga Of An American Family was first published in 1976, and, along with the TV version, became a cultural phenomenon. It involves the Gambian Kunta Kinte, sold into slavery in 1767, and his multiple generations of descendents throughout the following 200 years, each of whom passes on an oral history of their ancestor. Later chapters of the book became a further TV series, Roots: The Next Generation, in 1979.
Noyce (Clear And Present Danger, Salt) will direct the first episode, with Carter (Metro, Coach Carter) helming the third. LeVar Burton, who played the young Kunta Kinte in the original version, is among the producers. Having himself directed prolifically for television, there'd be a pleasing symmetry to him also manning the cameras here for episode two or four, but there's no indication of that so far.
There's no cast or airdate announced yet either, but the Grammy award-winning Questlove, from hip-hop outfit The Roots, is producing the music. Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Alison McDonald and Charles Murray are the writers.