Did Sean Connery have some kind of clause in a contract somewhere preventing anyone from touching Finding Forrester until he died? Or did his recent death simply remind people that Finding Forrester exists and is a property that could stand to be milked a bit? Either way, Deadline says NBC is developing a TV adaptation of the 2000 Gus Van Sant film that starred Connery as a reclusive author who mentors a promising young Black author, with the new version coming from director Tim Story (of Ride Along, Think Like A Man, Barbershop, and, uh, Fantastic Four fame), NBA player Stephen Curry, and The Chi executive producers TJ Brady and Rasheed Newson.
This new version will introduce some twists to the plot of the movie, with the younger mentee being a homeless teenage orphan trying to use his basketball skills to get into a prestigious boarding the school. The mentor, rather than a grumpy Scottish guy who once played James Bond, will be a reclusive Black lesbian author “whose career was ruined by public scandal” (as opposed to Connery’s character simply wallowing in his misery after writing one famous book). Of course, you can’t talk about Finding Forrester without talking about the reason the internet of today remembers it—and by “internet of today” we mean “internet of 20 years ago.” Will the Finding Forrester TV show have a “you’re the man now, dog” scene? A decade ago we would’ve said “of course,” but does anyone even remember when that was a meme? Hell, “memes” weren’t even a thing when that was a thing.