Praise the heavens above, Nia Long is coming to network television! The 44-year-old is set to star alongside funny man Mike Epps in ABC’s pilot, Uncle Buck. The TV adaptation is based on the popular 1989 film of the same name by John Hughes starring John Candy.
CBS tried a hand at Uncle Buck in the 1990’s but it was a flop. This version will have a similar look and feel, only centered around a black family. Just like the film, Epps will play an immature guy tasked with raising his brother Will’s children. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Long will be the determined and responsible wife of Will, busy running a nonprofit for at-risk youth.
Long was recently cast in the short-lived 2014 WE tv drama, The Divide. She also starred in Tyler Perry’s, The Single Moms Club in addition to her long catalog of 90’s and early 2000’s films. She went m.i. for a few years but that’s because she was starring as mommy. She told Essence last year, "I'm not that movie-star mom who's got a private chef, a nanny and a driver. My life is getting up and doing a bunch of things and then trying to get my s--t together after everybody is taken care of."
We love seeing black girls at work, juggling it all and still looking fly.
The network is already topping ratings with Blackish, showing off today’s African-American family dynamic. Adding another black sitcom to ABC’s already booming lineup will likely lead to a jackpot in the ratings especially among diverse viewers. A date for the project has not been announced.
Photo: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com
Tyler Young is an On-Air Morning News Producer and blogger in Charlotte, N.C. She is a proud country girl from a small town in South Carolina. In Tyler’s free time you’ll catch her giving back to the community, writing scripts or watching “A Different World” reruns. Follow Tyler on Twitter: @sheistyler and at sheistyler.blogspot.com.
