Almost a year and a half after it last aired and nearly a year after its "never-ending" Forever Eden sequel was cancelled after only seven episodes, one of the producers of Fox's Summer 2003 Paradise Hotel reality series says the network is discussing the possibility of bringing the show back for a Summer 2005 run.

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A sleazy guilty pleasure that Fox originally envisioned as a Big Brother-like summer programming franchise of its own, Paradise Hotel started off slow in the ratings, but built strongly over its four-month Summer 2003 run. Its strong summer performance resulted in Fox executives repeatedly all but formally announcing their intentions to air a Summer 2004 edition of the show, before later deciding to capitalize on the format's popularity by leveraging it into the year-round "never-ending" Forever Eden series that failed miserably.

In an interview with United Kingdom industry news outlet C21 Media, Charles Thompson, one of the executive producers of both series and the managing director of their UK-based Mentorn production company, told the media outlet that Fox reality programming head Mike Darnell is considering reviving the show. "We're exploring the possibility of bringing it back," Thompson told C21 Media.

Referring to the ratings performance of a local version of Paradise Hotel that has been airing on Sweden's TV4 network, Thompson added that "Mike has been impressed with the performance of the format in Sweden, despite the fact that it was produced for much lower budgets that the Fox original."

Given that Fox gave Forever Eden an unusually large twenty-five episode initial commitment that resulted in the series becoming an embarrassing $20 million flop, the production budget issue is not considered an insignificant obstacle. According to C21 Media, a number of cost-reducing options are being considered, including product placement and the possibility of Mentorn accepting a reduced up front production fee in exchange for a larger portion of any back-end sales.

Also reportedly on the table -- just when you thought you might have finally seen the last of Toni Ferrari -- is a return of Paradise Hotel's original cast.

Thompson also cites an enraged "Christian lobby" that allegedly effected Paradise Hotel's ad sales as one of the reasons for Fox's decision to not previously resume the series, however given that even Raleigh, North Carolina's WRAZ-50 (the most conservative of the network's affiliates) never pulled Paradise Hotel from its broadcast schedule -- something it did do for Who's Your Daddy, Married In America, Temptation Island, and Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire -- and that the network broadcast its equally raunchy Forever Eden successor, the accuracy of that comment would appear debatable.

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