Having previously worked on developing Cobra and other properties into series, Sylvester Stallone has now moved on to rebooting his 1981 movie Nighthawks. Replying to questions about his career on an Instagram Live chat, the actor mentioned Nighthawks as a project that’s being developed at Universal as a streaming show, making it potentially part of the new Peacock platform. Universal Pictures were behind the original Nighthawks, of course, making it a sensible choice, at least in IP terms, to recycle.
Discussing which of his films were perhaps underrated, Stallone identified Paradise Alley as being overlooked, before going on to comment that:
“Same thing happened to Nighthawks. Love that film. By the way: we’re remaking that as a streaming series, also at Universal. I’m really proud that all these things are coming back around, because they’re holding up.”
The original Nighthawks had a difficult production, having been intended as the third in The French Connection series. When that sequel fell through, the script was reworked into Nighthawks, but retained The French Connection‘s grubby urban aesthetic. The film ended up replacing its original director, with Stallone also having a heavy influence over the final edit. In terms of plot, Nighthawks deals with urban terrorism, a fairly unique subject for a major American studio picture in the 1980s.
Although not one of Stallone’s best-known movies, it’s since built up a solid reputation as an action picture, and has been on the star’s development slate since last year. Indeed, Stallone has been busy dusting off his back-catalogue recently after bringing back the Rocky and Rambo franchises to varying degrees of success. In the same Q&A session on Instagram, Stallone also revealed he wants to make Demolition Man 2 happen, and has ideas for new Rocky entries. Furthermore, he recently tried to get an action series with Dolph Lundgren off the ground at Disney, and has ambitious plans for his production company to emulate Blumhouse’s horror success in the action market.
What do you think, though, of a new take on Nighthawks from Sylvester Stallone? As ever, let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.
