At the end of this week’s huge Big Brother 19 double eviction, host Julie Chen announced that coming in the winter…Celebrity Big Brother! Currently, CBS network is just in the planning stages, so not much is known. However, the Hollywood Reporter had an exclusive interview with Executive Producers Allison Grodner, Rich Meehan, and Julie to discuss the upcoming season.
They shared their hopes, expectations, and plans for this Big Brother North American first. As many Big Brother super fans know, the UK version of Big Brother airs their own celebrity editions twice a year. The first one airs during the summer/early fall, and then the second one airs in the winter. This edition usually includes a few American celebrities that play alongside with European celebs. A few of the American celebrities that have appeared are Gary Busey, Tiffany ‘New York’ Pollard, Frankie Grande, and Perez Hilton.
In the Hollywood Reporter interview, Chen mentioned that back in season 2, they considered a celebrity edition but it fell apart. She said the reason it works now is that the ratings have been the highest they’ve been in years. Therefore, it feels like a profitable investment. They don’t know if there will be a celebrity edition every winter, but if it does well, they’ll explore the option to air more celebrity versions.
Right now, no date was confirmed, but it will air in 2018. This most likely means it’ll start in late January or early February. Like the UK version, the American one will be shorter than the civilian edition. In the UK, it only airs for three to four weeks. CBS may try to push this one a little longer, but probably no more than 60 days.
To not overlap with Big Brother Canada 6, we expect the celebrity version to end before that one, which usually starts in early spring. Meehan and Grodner want the celebrity edition to feel like authentic Big Brother, but have it’s own sets of twists and events.
The producers and Chen were realistic about casting. They know they won’t get the latest big celebrities, but they’re hoping to get people who can use it to reinvent their career. They mentioned how well Dancing with the Stars does with casting its stars. Their main goal is to find people who are fun to watch, and adding celebrity fans is even more of a perk. Meehan and Grodner didn’t rule out the possibilities of having some former Big Brother players also appear in the cast.
One of the main reveals from the interview was that the celebrity Big Brother version will have live feeds, which will be available 24-7. Unlike Big Brother Over the Top, the episodes will also air on CBS a few nights a week.
The producers and host said that they were still at the beginning stages of planning out the series, so they’re not sure how it will all look and turn out, but they’re excited about it. We are as well.
We’ll keep you updated as new developments unfold for the celebrity Big Brother.
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