Yes, that's right. According to Deadline, the History Channel has acquired the rights to the original 1977 miniseries from Mark Wolper, the son of David Wolper, the Roots executive producer, and to the book from author Alex Haley's estate. The new series will be an eight-part show (the original was 12 hours) and they're now in the process of gathering writers for the updating. I'm not sure this is really necessary, as the original Roots was such a mass phenomenon and actually still draws fairly high ratings in reruns, but it is timely, with recent movies like Django Unchained, Lincoln, and 12 Years a Slave dominating entertainment news. Even The Butler fits into that field, in some ways. But the original Roots still holds up- it had so many great actors in all the parts, and frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in the History Channel to get these things right, with their recent track record being shows like Hatfields & McCoys and The Bible. They may have been big hits, but they weren't all that great, were they? Let's hope this one turns out better.
