Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel have officially signed to reprise their roles as Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence in The Disney Channel’s new pilot, “Girl Meets World,” according to TVLine.
The new show is said to find Cory as a seventh grade history teacher, echoing qualities of William Daniels’ Mr. Feeny on the original show. Married to Topanga, the pair have a 14-year-old Son, Elliot and a 13-year-old daughter, Riley Matthews. The latter part is the series’ central protagonist and is now being cast with the following character description:
“Indelible personality. An adorable girl on the cusp of whatever comes next in life, and wanting to rush into it head first. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, and spends most of her time juggling the obstacles that life throws her way… There is no obstacle in this girl’s world that can dampen her bright spirit and eternal optimism.”
“Boy Meets World” creator and executive producer Michael Jacobs is developing the pilot.
The original show aired from 1993 to 2000. Beginning with his life as a sixth grader, the series followed Cory through high school, to college and eventually into marriage with longtime love interest, Topanga.
UPDATE: Fishel has taken to Tumblr with the following written statement about the series and its connection to “Boy Meets World”:
First of all, let me say that you, the fans of Boy Meets World, have been awesome. That word is often used incorrectly by people, including myself, on a daily basis but you have truly been awe inspiring. You, yes, even YOU, are the reason that Girl Meets World WILL BE MADE. J
I do not know how many BMW cast members will be returning for GMW, or how often they may appear if and/or when they do appear. I am going to do my best to not speak for others with this open post. But because I have known Michael Jacobs, Ben Savage, Rider Strong, Will Friedle, and Bill Daniels for 19 years, I know we share many of the same feelings regarding the 7 wonderful years we spent making BMW. Those years were among the most warm, hilarious, insightful, educational years of my life and I wouldnt trade them for the world. Another thing I wouldnt trade for anything is the integrity and the heart with which BMW was made. I promise with the entirety of my heart that we will make GMW with the same honesty, innocence, and intelligence that you learned to expect from BMW.
I say this because making the decision to do the show involved more conversations than you can possible imagine. These conversations were with the same people I mentioned above because they were all instrumental in creating and maintaining the heart of BMW. The first comment out of every persons mouth was, Lets only do it if we think we can create something as special as we did with BMW. When the news leaked that GMW was in the making, literally days after I first heard about the project myself, Michael Jacobs and I had a conversation and we talked about how we were both so blown away by the reactions from all of you. We felt honored. We felt nostalgic. We felt touched by the excitement in your comments, tweets, Tumblr, and Facebook posts. But most of all, we felt inspired. We felt inspired to bring these characters back to life and to tell you more of their stories. Michael said to me, Danielle, when I read what people say BMW meant to them it makes me so very proud of all of us. I think it is important for us, for as long as we are fortunate enough to have this opportunity to do GMW, that we all look each other in the eyes every so often and make sure we know we have something of value to offer the audience. I think we have that with GMW.
I say that so that I can say this: GMW is a new show. It isnt BMW brought back to life but in current day. It will have familiar faces, familiar themes, and familiar messages. It will also have new faces, new themes, and new messages. BMW never spoke down to the audience and we are going to do our best to never do that with GMW. But please keep in mind that this there will be episode 1, of season 1, of a brand new show. We started at the same place with BMW but we evolved and we evolved quickly. For those of you who knew and loved BMW, please allow this show to evolve as well. Stick with us. Give us a chance.
In the meantime, a sincere thank you to every one of you for all of your tweets (I read them all, every day. It killed me not to be able to talk about it!), even those of you who asked us not to do it. There were only a few of you but I know why you dont want GMW to happen and I appreciate that BMW meant enough to you that you dont want to see its legacy tarnished. I can assure you, we dont want that either. Your love, dedication, and appreciation means more to us than you could ever know and it will be the driving force behind our passion to make the best show we can possibly make. Thank you for giving us the chance to do it again.
Love,
Danielle
