Allen Hughes to Helm History Channel's ROOTS Remake

According to Entertainment Weekly, Allen Hughes (BROKEN CITY, THE BOOK OF ELI) has signed on to direct History Channel's new version of the award-winning 1977 miniseries ROOTS, after acquiring the rights to the original broadcast from Mark Wolper, the son of late "Roots" executive producer David L. Wolper, as well as the rights to the 1976 novel "Roots: The Saga of an American Family."

The reboot will be an an eight-hour miniseries for History, with Mark Wolper serving as executive producer. The project will feature elements from the book as well as the 1977 series.

Based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel, entitled Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Roots received 37 Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It won also a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third-highest-rated US television program. It was produced on a budget of $6.6 million.

The series introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte. A sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, first aired in 1979, and a second sequel, Roots: The Gift, a Christmas TV movie, starring Burton andLouis Gossett Jr. first aired in 1988.