Suzanne Somers Once Suggested a ‘Three’s Company’ Reboot Using Hologram of John Ritter
A Three’s Company reboot hasn’t happened yet. But that doesn’t mean ideas haven’t been discussed. Suzanne Somers, who played Chrissy Snow on the classic TV show and died on Oct. 15, 2023, once shared her idea for a Three’s Company reboot. It involved her deceased co-star, John Ritter (Jack Tripper), in hologram form, and his son, Jason Ritter.
Suzanne Somers’ ‘Three’s Company’ reboot idea had Chrissy and Jack married with a child
In an April 2022 episode of the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast, Somers shared her idea behind a Three’s Company reboot, explaining how it could continue without Ritter, who died in 2003. Her suggestion: a holographic version of the late actor (more on that ahead).
“I had suggested a show where you would imagine that Chrissy Snow and Jack Tripper eventually got married and had a child,” Somers said.
The sitcom, which aired from 1977 to 1984, saw Somers play Snow alongside Ritter’s Tripper and Joyce DeWitt’s Janet Wood as her roommates.
Somers, who would’ve turned 77 on Oct. 16, 2023, continued, saying Ritter’s now-43-year-old son, Jason, could take on the role of her child.
Suzanne Somers suggested John Ritter appear as a hologram in a ‘Three’s Company’ reboot
So how would the new Three’s Company work without John Ritter? “I had suggested this to Jason’s people and that the show would be me and Jason,” Somers said. “But that John would appear as a hologram because it’d be like he was back and alive,” Somers continued. “But Jason doesn’t want to do anything reminiscent of what his father did.”
Somers, who retired from sitcoms following the ’90s Step by Step, said she’d return to the small-screen for a Three’s Company reboot.
“That was the last time I got kinda turned on by thinking about doing a series again,” she said. “The marketing is so much better. Suzanne Somers and John Ritter’s son, Jason. And I guess that’s what he didn’t want, but that’s a marketer’s dream. Suzanne Somers and Fred Schmoe is not a marketer’s dream, you know what I mean?”
A ‘Three’s Company’ reboot movie was reportedly in the works in 2016
Although Somers’ idea for a Three’s Company reboot never happened, a return to the screen has been talked about before. In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter claimed New Line Cinema in negotiations for movie rights to the TV show.
Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the writers behind He’s Just Not That Into You, were poised to pen the screenplay. Producing the project were reportedly Robert Cort of Runaway Bride and Don Taffner Jr. The only details on the storyline were that the reboot would be “set in the 1970s.”
“The show is iconic, and the three characters are so big that a lot of actors want to get in on this … New Line will have no trouble casting,” Borys Kit, a senior film writer with The Hollywood Reporter, told ABC News at the time.
Was there a spinoff of ‘Three’s Company’?
John Ritter’s Three’s Company character continued after the original sitcom. Ritter starred in the spinoff series Three’s a Crowd. He played opposite Mary Cadorette as Vicky in the short-lived series. After just one season and 22 episodes, ABC canceled Three’s a Crowd.
While a Three’s Company reboot isn’t knocking on the door of any movie theaters or streamers, the original series is available to watch for free on Pluto TV or — with a subscription — on Philo, FuboTV, and YouTube TV.
