It's exactly 40 years since the embryonic 'Blues Brothers' made their appearance on Steve Martin's 'Saturday Night Live'.
Dan Aykroyd is working with John Belushi’s widow to make a re-boot of their legendary movie The Blues Brothers as a primetime animated series, which they intend to pitch to networks and streaming platforms soon, according to a new report.
Deadline claims that Aykroyd and Judy Belushi co-created the new series with ‘Saturday Night Live’ original writer Anne Beatts, with animation being handled by Bento Box Entertainment, who previously worked on ‘Bob’s Burgers’.
Dan Aykroyd in 2014
It will apparently see Jake and Elwood Blues placed in a contemporary setting but with their familiar mission statement, “utilizing all new technology to make and promote their own records, seek out and record new artists and avoid law enforcement — and all while fighting for truth, justice and a better breakfast sandwich,” according to Aykroyd.
The usual welter of soul, blues and R&B hits familiar to fans of the original 1980 movie will be performed by the brothers during the new animated adventures, along with a number of new performances of more recent songs recorded exclusively for the series.
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The Blues Brothers, which has since become a comedy classic, originated on ‘Saturday Night Live’ exactly 40 years ago back in 1976, when Aykroyd and Belushi donned the famous Wayfarers and performed as ‘Howard Shore and the All-Bee Band’ on an episode of ‘SNL’ hosted by Steve Martin.
Two years later, the show’s in-house pianist and composer Paul Shaffer put together an all-star band of Stax session musicians to open on a series of live dates for Martin, and the same band recorded an album called Briefcase Full of Blues.
While a sequel called Blues Brothers 2000 was released to disappointing critical reception, with John Goodman replacing the late Belushi who died in 1982, attempts to re-boot The Blues Brothers have not been successful, with proposed series in 1998 and 2011 failing to find a home on network TV. With the rise of streaming platforms, however, Aykroyd and Belushi’s widow might get the green-light this time around.
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