Knight Rider
by Jackrabbit Slim
Hasselhoff Skien Comes to Big Screen
Tuesday May 9 11:44 AM ET
The Weinstein Co. has picked up the feature rights to the '80's series Knight Rider from show creator Glen A. Larson.
By Mark Umbach, FilmStew.com
Everybody's favorite TV actor, well, at least Germany's favorite TV actor, David Hasselhoff, must be so proud. The actor, who recently found out DreamWorks will be bringing an adaptation his Baywatch to theatres, will soon see another of his characters brought to the big screen. Indie shingle The Weinstein Co. has picked up feature rights to Hasselhoff starrer Knight Rider from show creator Glen A. Larson, and the company now has an eye toward adapting the series for the big screen.
Hasselhoff spent the mid-'80s cruising around the small screen as Michael Knight, with his talking car KITT, in the cop series Knight Rider. The show centered on an injured cop who had been left to die. He is nursed back to health by a mysterious millionaire who gives the cop a new name, face and all sorts of high-tech gadgets, including his car KITT, to help fight crime.
The show ran from 1982 through 1986 on NBC and earned Hasselhoff the People's Choice Award as Favorite Male Performer in a New Television Series for the show's first season.
No casting decisions for the feature have been made, but David Price, who brought the idea to The Weinstein Co., will be a co-producer.
The Weinstein Co. recently picked up the feature rights to TV's Welcome Back, Kotter as a star vehicle for Ice Cube, and they are also developing The Equalizer for the big screen. One can only hope that the studio does a better job with Knight Rider than was recently done with the likes of The Dukes of Hazzard and Bewitched, to name a few.
So, presumably Hasselhoff need not apply. Casting ideas? Should William Daniels be awakened for this?
I presume, also, that this film will be a turd.
|Link|2:55 PM
9 Comments:
The Weinstein Co. bought it? From the English Patient to Hasselhoff.
The real big question here though is; will they bring back the old Pontiac? Will Pontiac even have a hand in the film? Whatever company gets their model selected is looking at a huge sales boost, crap movie be damned. The show is still in re-runs in most parts of the world.
The best thing about the series was the title melody, though. As instantly recognizable as the Mission Impossible theme.
One vote for Gary Coleman as Michael Knight.
William Daniels is a must.
Pontiac doesn't really have a car for this right now. No Firebird or Trans Am any more, and their current Holden Monaro, er, GTO is going to go away for a year or two after this model year. I don't see it as a convertible, so the Solstice is out. The retro look being favored in the coming crop of muscle cars doesn't seem to work for KITT, I don't think. Hey, with all the German interest, maybe it should be one of the new BMW 6-series coupes?
Oh, wait, shouldn't they remake "Smokey and the Bandit" first and just take their cue from that? ;-)
Out of those, the BMW 6-series works best.
But since Pontiac now is (maybe even was back then) a General Motors company, perhaps they might be susceptible to letting another company car do the honours. Then I'd propose the Shelby CS6 Mustang.
Ford is not a GM brand.
Man, you're right, it's not. I've always lived under the illusion that it was bought up years ago. Quite wrong, apparently.
Now that Hasselhoff is eligible for the AARP, perhaps he should be cast as the lead with the Mercury Grand Marquis as KITT.
I say, get him a Hummer. And show him having to refuel during every car chase.
That's scary--Tom Selleck also came to my mind as Michael Knight. But he was in that other show about a Ferrari, not a Trans Am.... ;-)
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