Fox reality boss always wanted to revive Joe Millionaire, but "we knew we couldn’t just bring back a remake of the original, that wouldn’t work"

Variety

"Obviously, the big surprise was gone," Rob Wade, who joined Fox as alternative entertainment president in 2017, tells Variety. "I also felt like that kind of surprise is very particular to a certain era. And that kind of era is probably gone in TV. So we had to find a way of reimagining the format by putting a twist on it, which was going to be fresh, and also really importantly, sustainable.” Wade and his team came up with four or five different twists on the format. They then contacted Jersey Shore creator SallyAnn Salsano to help flesh out the ideas they had come up with and come up with a winning concept. Salsano says when she was approached, “my jaw dropped. I was such a fan. I could name the cast. If you think about it, it turned everything on its head. It was super honest, and it has those moments that you were like, ‘Oh my God!’" The new version, she promises, “has equally ‘WTF’ moments. But I think it’s done in a way that is kind of like where the country is right now. We’re not lying to anyone. They don’t know everything, and there are twists and turns along the way that even the audience won’t know until they come up. But I would say not a big ‘gotcha.’ And that was important to all of us, to not make it a big ‘gotcha.’” ALSO: Meet Joe Millionaire: For Richer or for Poorer's two stars: 27-year-old farming CEO Steven and 32-year-old construction CEO Kurt.