ITV Acquires ‘Better Late Than Never’ Which Sees Bill Shatner & Henry Winkler Backpack Through Asia
It’s not often we post about reality tv shows here at Geektown, but when ITV acquires a show which sees Star Trek’s William Shatner, Happy Days’ Henry Winkler, former boxer and lean grilling master George Foreman, and american footballer Terry Bradshaw team up to backpack across Asia… It’s kind of hard to ignore!
ITV have acquired Better Late Than Never from US network NBC, which sees the 4 veteran stars joined by younger comedian Jeff Dye, as they travel through Tokyo, Kyoto, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Chang Mai, to tick items off their collective ‘bucket lists’.
The 4 x 60 minute series aired on NBC last year, and has already been renewed for a 2nd season. It’s based on a Korean format called Grandpas Over Flowers, and the US version is produced by Universal Television and Storyline Entertainment. Moving from drama to reality, it’s actually exec produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who were the people behind the film The Bucket List, along with along with Henry Winkler, Jason Ehrlich, Stephanie Chambers, Alex Katz and Tim Crescenti.
“When I saw it, I realised it had real integrity,” commented producer Crescenti, whose company ‘Small World IFT’ secured the global rights to the format from Asia. “It wasn’t just a bunch of D-listers singing and dancing. It also wasn’t forced reality – scripted reality to me is just bad acting.”
Better Late Than Never will air on ITV4 from Wednesday 3rd May 2017 at 10pm.
