It’s been 23 years since “The Nanny” went off the air after spending six seasons on CBS, and in the time since, the show has become a cult classic, with fans all around the world reciting lines from their favorite episodes and emulating the many fashions of Ms. Fran Fine, played by the legendary Fran Drescher. In early 2021, HBO Max acquired streaming rights to all 146 episodes and had given a new generation of fans a chance to laugh, live and love alongside the Fines and the Sheffields, but in a world filled with reboot after reboot, one has to wonder when we’ll ever get to find out what the clan has been up to since we last saw them head off to Los Angeles to support Max Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy; Victor Cassadine, “General Hospital”) as one of his Broadway shows was being developed into a TV show by Hollywood producers. Now comes word that Drescher has been talking with the show’s production studio, Sony, about continuing the story as a movie.
In a recent “Entertainment Tonight” interview at Variety’s Power of Women event, Drescher told Deidre Behar, “There’s some talk about maybe a movie … we’re in the talking stage now with our parent company, Sony.” She noted, “It won’t be a musical,” referencing previous discussions about a Broadway iteration of the show being in development. “The musical is going to be set in the ’90s as was the series. The movie will probably be more in the present and incorporate new characters.”
While she expects characters from the original show to be featured, Drescher explains, “[the movie would] dovetail into a whole other character story.” Should it feature the beloved characters and their familiar portrayers in some capacity, it’s understood that we’ll finally get to meet the adult versions of Fran and Maxwell’s twins, Jonah Samuel and Eve Catherine Sheffield.
Courtesy of CBS
Drescher hopes that whatever happens with a musical, continuation movie, or even a reboot TV series, fans receive the same message they had during the show’s original run, which is as follows:
“This is as current and present as it’s ever been. So, it’s extremely important that the audience feels like they’re really seeing the proper representation of all the characters and the relationships and they understand how noble in many ways the character of Ms. Fine was.” She adds, “And [understand] the global message of that show was that it doesn’t matter what you look like or what you sound like, it’s what in your heart that counts and that was what she proved week in and week out.”
In describing her iconic character, Drescher told “E.T.,” “Besides being an amazing dresser and a sweet, loving, warmhearted, authentic human being, [Fran Fine was] unabashedly, unapologetic about who she was and it’s a great example for us all.”
In addition to being an actor, Fran Drescher is the current president of SAG-AFTRA, the union for actors.
Watch Drescher talk about the potential movie project and the musical update by clicking here.