It’s 2020, and Hollywood still can’t get enough of old David Hasselhoff IPs. Three years after Baywatch was rebooted with a starry new cast in 2017, the news has arrived that cult 80s TV series Knight Rider is also now making its way to the big screen.
Deadline reported this afternoon that Spyglass Entertainment is teaming up with Aquaman director James Wan’s Atomic Monster production company to develop a feature film reboot of the classic property. It looks like Wan will produce, alongside Michael Clear, with former video game writer TJ Fixman, whose credits include Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man, attached to provide the script. Judson Scott will exec produce.
As anyone familiar with the original show will know, Knight Rider followed Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight as he went around fighting crime with his trusty talking car, KITT. Plot details on the movie reboot have yet to be revealed, but it’s believed that it’ll update things to the present day and retain the “anti-establishment tone” of the old show.
Knight Rider, which began in 1982, has already spawned multiple spinoffs and follow-ups. The franchise includes two sister shows, Code of Honor and Team Knight Rider, as well as two TV movies from the 90s – Knight Rider 2000 and Knight Rider 2010. A short-lived sequel series aired in 2008 as well, with Justin Bruening as the son of Hasselhoff’s character and Val Kilmer as the voice of KITT. Meanwhile, back in 2016, Justin Lin was attached to direct a movie version, though this Spyglass take on Knight Rider seems to be completely unrelated to that.
Spyglass is also gearing up to make Scream 5, of course, the hotly-anticipated horror sequel set to be distributed by Paramount sometime in 2021. Atomic Monster, meanwhile, has a bunch of flicks coming up, including The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and Mortal Kombat for New Line, and There’s Someone Inside Your House for Netflix.
