One of the most popular American sitcoms on Fox was Martin. This show — a sitcom starring Martin Lawrence as a DJ — aired from 1992 to 1997, running for five seasons total. The show focused on the situations that Martin Payne (Lawrence), his girlfriend Gina Waters (Tisha Campbell-Martin), her coworker Pamela James (Tichina Arnold), and several other characters get into during their daily lives.
Martin had a bit of a rocky ending. Though it ran strong for some time, Tisha Campbell eventually ended up filing a lawsuit against the producers of the show as well as Martin Lawrence himself. Allegedly, she had been experiencing verbal abuse, physical assaults, and sexual harassment on the set of the show. The production company eventually settled with her, with a single caveat — she was not to work alongside Martin Lawrence while shooting the final episode of the show.
For a long time, the feud between Lawrence and Campbell-Martin precluded any possibility of a Martin reboot. However, rumors of a 2018 redux of Martin abound in the blogosphere. For example, Martin Lawrence’s fiancée posted on Instagram about a possible reboot of the show. Lawrence responded in kind — but neither confirmed nor denied the rumor.
Tina Campbell-Martin also has hinted towards the show being rebooted a few times in various interviews. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for a 2018 Martin is that three of the main actors — that is, Martin Lawrence, Tichina Arnold, and Tisha Campbell-Martin — were spotted leaving Morton’s Steakhouse in Burbank, California just a couple of weeks ago. This is the first time that Tisha Campbell-Martin and Martin Lawrence have been seen in public together since their fallout in the late 90s.
When asked about a reboot of the popular 90’s show, the actors responded ‘coyly’, refusing to give any concrete details but not denying anything either. Though Tisha shut down the conversation as it was veering a bit too close to becoming a confirmation, it is highly likely that the show will be remade sometime soon in the future. As Martin Lawrence says, “never say never” to another season of Martin.
Another piece of information that helps to confirm the show’s renewal was an interaction with Carl Anthony Payne II (who played Martin Payne’s friend Cole Brown in the show). He also refused to confirm the show — possibly suggesting that all of the involved parties are subject to a non-disclosure agreement — but says he would “definitely” be into it. He also strongly suggests that the show should be on Netflix. He even made a strong and accurate pitch that any Netflix executive would respect.
Though a new season of Martin has not yet been confirmed, the unwillingness of the actors involved to speak about it — alongside their general excitement when asked about the show — is pretty much a confirmation in and of itself. Clearly, the rocky end to the original iteration of Martin (as well as Lawrence and Campbell’s feud) no longer has a bearing on whether they will perform in this show. There is no release date yet, as the show hasn’t even been confirmed. However, we can likely expect an announcement sometime this year — if not a pilot episode or even a full season put up on Netflix.
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