‘Everybody Hates Chris’ Animated Reboot In The Works At CBS Studios, As Part Of Rapidly Growing Cartoon Slate

The Emmy-nominated sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, which ran from 2005 to 2009, is reportedly getting an animated reboot via CBS Studios. The original comedy, which aired on UPN and later The CW, was a retelling of comedian Chris Rock’s childhood set in the 1980s in Brooklyn, New York, and narrated by Rock himself.

The in-development reboot will soon seek potential buyers, according to a Deadline story. Rock and Ali LeRoi — the co-creators of the original series — are also behind this new adaptation as executive producers, alongside Michael Rotenberg, who was an executive producer on the original. Rock is expected to narrate this reboot as well.

This is the latest animated reboot of an existing property to come from CBS Studios, with other upcoming examples being Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy, which are both coming to Paramount+. The company also reenvisioned the new season of its existing live-action series No Activity as an animated series. CBS Studios is also behind animated comedies like Showtime’s Our Cartoon President and Paramount+’s Tooning Out the News. Studio president David Stapf elaborated on its animation strategy to Deadline:

We dipped our toe into it as a way to expand the Star Trek franchise but then quickly saw with Alec Botnick, who works with Kate [Adler] as our head of animation, hey, wait a minute, this is a game we can play in, it doesn’t have to just be to fill a piece of the pie that Star Trek had never been in before. We can do it elsewhere, and there’s a demand for it, not only at Paramount+ and in the streaming world but everywhere, so we’re learning as we go.

Overall, ViacomCBS (CBS Studios’s parent company) has been heavily relying on its deep catalog of IP for both adult animation and its kids’ offerings, such as the cg Rugrats reboot and Spongebob spin-off series Kamp Koral: Spongebob’s Under Years.