Jessica Biel Teases How She Plans To “Modernize” ‘7th Heaven’ With Reboot & Create “Safe Space” On Set As EP

Nearly 20 years after we last saw the Camden family, Jessica Biel is bringing a 7th Heaven reboot to a new generation.

With a new iteration of the WB/CW show in the works at CBS Studios, which Biel is executive producing through her Iron Ocean banner, the actress who starred as Mary Camden in the original series explained how she wants to “modernize” the Aaron Spelling family drama.

“What we want to create, how we want to modernize it, is really the things that are happening for teenagers and families that have teenagers all the way down to the youngest child — technology-based issues, school stuff, bullying stuff, drugs, alcohol,” she said on Collider Ladies Night. “All of those things we want to address in a very real way, which is, I think, what the original kind of gently touched on, but we were very careful about what our audience wanted. We had a lot of limitations. We have less limitations now.”

Biel continued, “We still want to keep the DNA of what it was, where you can sit down and watch with your families, but we’re not going to hold back, I think, as much as we did before.”

When asked why she only plans to return as an EP, as opposed to reprising her role as Mary Camden, Biel explained she’s focused on creating “a safe place for people to be really creative and really vulnerable, because a lot of the stuff that I’m doing now, the content that I’m doing now, it’s emotional stuff. It’s people really putting themselves out there on the chopping block emotionally, and if you don’t have that space protected, I think it’s hard. It’s hard to give those kinds of performances.

“So, I think that’s what I’m constantly trying to do as a producer is just build out that space where everyone feels like they will be taken care of, and it’s safe, you know?” she added.

7th Heaven ran for 11 seasons from 1996 to 2007 on The WB and The CW, following Reverend Eric Camden (Stephen Collins), his wife Annie (Catherine Hicks) and their children Matt (Barry Watson), Mary (Jessica Biel), Lucy (Beverley Mitchell), Simon (David Gallagher) and Ruthie (Mackenzie Rosman).

Most of the cast have distanced themselves from Collins, who admitted back in 2014 that he sexually assaulted three underaged girls but was never charged.