With Young Sheldon, CBS Is Trying to Turn The Big Bang Theory Into a Big Franchise

Network wants the prequel to become its next long-running hit sitcom

Chuck Lorre has created several huge TV hits over the past two decades, including Two and a Half Men, Dharma & Greg and now The Big Bang Theory, but he had always resisted spinning any of them off. “I don’t like that,” said Lorre. “I’m fundamentally opposed to taking something that’s working and cannibalizing it to make something else.”

But with The Big Bang Theory—which in Season 10 remained TV’s most-watched series—getting closer to the end of its run (see sidebar), he’s making an exception for Young Sheldon, a Big Bang prequel focusing on Sheldon Cooper (with Iain Armitage stepping in for Jim Parsons), as a 9-year-old child genius growing up in Texas.

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This story first appeared in the Sept. 25, 2017, issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.