After trying for several years to get a reboot of The Greatest American Hero off the ground, ABC has ordered a pilot for a new version of the superhero comedy, and now the show finally has its star. Hannah Simone, best known at Cece on Fox's New Girl, will take on the lead role in the new show.
Simone has signed on to play Meera in the half-hour comedy. Meera is a 30-year-old Cleveland woman whose life is currently going nowhere, seeing as how her only interests are singing karaoke and pouring tequila down her gullet, when she's miraculously entrusted with an alien super suit so that she can protect the planet.
Hannah Simone has signed on to the pilot just a couple of weeks after it was ordered from ABC. New Girl, which debuts its final, eight episode, season in April, has showcased Simone's comedic talents for all seven seasons. Cece started off as a party girl model who was also a loyal best friend to Jess while being blunt and headstrong, but the character has become more self-aware and grown up as the show has gone on, and it's incredibly likely that this is the kind of trajectory The Greatest American Hero's Meera will take as well. I mean, who won't mature a bit when using an alien super suit to fight crime?
While Simone is most recognizable from her part on New Girl, the actress has lent her talents to quite a few other television shows and movies, including Kojack, Beautiful People, Miss India America, Band Aid and Killing Gunther. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Simone fielded several offers for other shows before she decided to make The Greatest American Hero her next move.
Right now, there's no word on whether or not the threats that Simone's Meera will face will be Earthly only, or if some extra-terrestrial baddies will come into play as well. The original series, which ran for three seasons on ABC from 1981 through 1983, starred William Katt as Los Angeles public school substitute high school teacher Ralph Hinkley, who's gifted the suit during a school field trip. The hour-long show drew comedy from the fact that not only did his character hate wearing the suit, but he'd promptly lost all the instructions for it right after receiving it and often had to figure out how to use it while fighting crime to hilarious results. And, it sounds like Meera is going to be just as in the dark when it comes to using her new superpowers as Hinkley was.
We don't know yet if The Greatest American Hero, which comes from executive producer Nahnatchka Kahn (Fresh Off the Boat), will make it to series on ABC, but stay tuned to CinemaBlend and we'll keep you up to date on all the latest news for the comedy. In the meantime, you can see Hannah Simone wrap up her work as Cece when New Girl kicks off on April 10 on Fox. To see what else you can catch in the coming weeks, be sure to check out our midseason premiere guide.
