Get ready to be permanently fixed to the edge of your seat– Fear Factor and Wipeout may be returning to TV!
Sharon Levy, CEO of production company Endemol Shine North America (ESNA), told Variety that with the recent success of the Deal or No Deal reboot, the company is now aiming to bring back– and reinvent– other signature shows, including ‘Fear Factor’ and ‘Wipeout.’
“I’m not a fan of a straight-up reboot without a reason for being,” Sharon told Variety. “You need to give them a reason to watch. And it has to feel of the moment.”
As The Ashley told you earlier this year, ‘Deal or No Deal’ recently returned to TV with a whole new premise and a new name: Deal or No Deal Island. The original gameshow– which aired on NBC from 2005 to 2008 with host Howie Mandel– now features contestants competing against each other and the show’s Banker. Game play has also been moved to a private island, with actor Joe Manganiello taking over hosting duties.
The new format has proven to be a hit, with NBC reporting it as the fastest-growing NBC unscripted debut ever on the Peacock streaming service.
Sharon and ESNA are now looking to replicate that success by rebooting shows like ‘Fear Factor,’ which originally aired on NBC with host Joe Rogan from 2001 to 2006 and again from 2011 to 2012. The series was last revived in 2017, airing on MTV with host Ludacris until 2018.
As fans of the show may remember, the OG series saw contestants put into nerve-racking, scary and sometimes downright disgusting scenarios to win cash and prizes. While Sharon admits to being “a huge horror fan,” she said the reinvention of ‘Fear Factor’ will introduce a social component to the series by tapping into “how crippled people are by fear … and how important it is to overcome that as a backbone.”
“We are looking at it completely differently than it has ever been done before,” she continued. “When you have a category like ‘Fear Factor,’ which is a social experiment with real stakes, the potential of that idea excites me.”
The team is also aiming to bring back the competition series Wipeout–- the game show where contestants compete on a large obstacle course, often “wiping out,” as the title suggests.
‘Wipeout’ aired on ABC from 2008 to 2014 and was rebooted in 2021 on TBS. As with ‘Fear Factor,’ ‘Wipeout’ would get the reinvention treatment if brought back, and this time, it would lean even further into physical comedy.
“We have some fun new takes on ‘Wipeout’ and exploring how you can take it past the very great note of someone eating it and falling into water,” Sharon said. “It seems like that can also be in a physical comedy space. There are other avenues to mine for that one.”
It’s unknown when the ‘Fear Factor’ and ‘Wipeout’ reinventions will premiere but in the meantime, viewers can get their nostalgia fix by watching the ‘Deal or No Deal’ reboot, with new episodes of ‘Deal or No Deal Island’ airing Tuesdays on NBC.
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(Photos: NBC; MTV; ABC; YouTube)
My husband and I used to love watching wipeout together! Now that our kids are older I bet they’d love watching it with us.
Also, the ad on the page is for a Wawa pizza and I live nowhere near a Wawa 🤣 I thought that was funny!