Anthony Behar

Lee Daniels originally didn't want anything to do with 'The Wonder Years' remake: 'I just didn't want to mess it up'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 9/21/21

The Wonder Years will make its triumphant return to ABC on Wednesday night with Lee Daniels attached as an executive producer, but that was far from a given when the idea was first floated to reboot the iconic coming-of-age series.

"I mean, it is a classic," Daniels, 61, said during Monday's Late Night with Seth Meyers. "How can you—they came to me. I didn't want to direct it. I didn't want to write it. I just didn't want to mess it up. So, I found a great showrunner/writer, Saladin [K. Patterson], who had a good take on it and who really understood the nuance of the African-American experience at that time."

"I wanted to show my family and so many other Black families that were middle-class," the two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker continued. "But we aren't represented that way in the '60s, in the '70s, in the early '80s. We are specific. And so, this is a middle-class Black family and what that world is like. It's exactly the same tone [as the original Wonder Years]. Fred Savage directed it. ... And it's good. It's really good."

Savage starred as Kevin Arnold in The Wonder Years from 1988 to '93. The series featured Daniel Stern narrating as an older Kevin recounting his adolescence in the late 1960s and early '70s. Dan Lauria, Alley Mills, Jason Hervey, Josh Saviano and Danica McKellar also starred.

In Patterson's remake, Don Cheadle will narrate as the adult Dean Williams reflecting upon his upbringing in Montgomery, Ala., in the late '60s. We begin with 12-year-old Dean (Elisha "EJ" Williams) in 1968. The series' cast is rounded out by Dulé Hill, Saycon Sengbloh, Allen Maldonado, Milan Ray, Laura Kariuki, Amari O'Neil and more.

Watch the trailer below.