Is their latest mission from God taking them back to the medium that spawned them?
According to Undercover, John Belushi’s widow Jane Belushi Pisano is spearheading an attempt to get the Blues Brothers back on to television in their own series. Working with former original Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beattes and Wayne Catania and Kieron Lafferty, the current stars of the officially sanctioned Blues Brother Review tour, she states that she has been developing a new television series which would see the classic musician characters created by her late husband and partner Dan Aykroyd. “The way we have scripted it over 6 to 8 shows where they are on a mission down the Mississippi back to New Orleans.”
While a Blues Brothers project without Belushi may sound like sacrilege to some fans (see Blues Brothers 2000), Belushi Pisano doesn’t have a problem with new actors sliding on the sunglasses and porkpie hats.
They are great American characters. People tend to think of them as John and Dan. They were the first actors to do it but they won’t be the last. When you see Kieran and Wayne you will see how they embody those characters and make them work. There is a spirit of Blues Brothers. It is an umbrella for the Blues.
A Blues Brothers television series doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it initially sounds. The musical Glee has been a surprise hit for Fox, and I have to confess that I’m surprised we haven’t already heard of other knock-off musical shows being developed by other networks. Of course, there are numerous hurtles to leap before we start setting our DVRs for this. For one, there is no mention of Aykroyd’s involvement in, or at least approval for, the project and I would think that would be needed.
Also, it sounds as if the project is in its very early days and that they haven’t shopped it around to the networks yet. Personally, it sounds like it might be a better fit for a cable network like HBO or Showtime rather than the over-the-air broadcast networks who are hampered by the FCC in what language they can use.
