Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the highly anticipated Saved by the Bell reboot is still on track for a 2020 release on NBCUniversal’s upcoming streaming service, Peacock.
During a call with press on Tuesday, Peacock chairman Matt Strauss confirmed that many of the streamer’s original series are going to be delayed until 2021 due to the current global health crisis. There are a few shows, however, that are already far enough along in production that will still be released this year as scheduled.
“We’re all unclear when exactly things are going to go back to normal and we’re going to be able to pick up where we left off with certain aspects of the original productions,” Strauss said. “We are very, very optimistic that there’s a handful of originals that we will have. Brave New World is essentially done. Psych movie [Psych 2: Lassie Come Home] is also done, and some of the reboots like Punky Brewster and Saved by the Bell. We feel optimistic that we can also have them available in 2020 as well as a few others.”
Original Saved by the Bell cast members Mario Lopez (A.C. Slater), Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie Spano), and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris) are reprising their roles in the reboot, which will also star franchise newcomers John Michael Higgins as Bayside High’s Principal Toddman, as well as Josie Totah, Haskiri Velazquez, Mitchell Hoog, Alycia Pascual-Pena, and Belmont Cameli as the new generation of high school students.
In the reboot, Zack, now the governor of California, finds himself in hot water after closing several low-income high schools. Affected students are ordered to attend highest-performing schools in the state like Bayside High, giving the overprivileged kids a much-needed and hilarious dose of reality.
Peacock is set to launch on July 15th with early availability for certain Comcast customers starting April 15th.