James Wan producing a Knight Rider feature film reboot

If the return of Who’s the Boss? earlier this week wasn’t enough 1980s nostalgia for you, then how about the news that Knight Rider is coming back?! Deadline reports that the classic TV series is getting a big-screen feature film reboot from Spyglass Media Group with James Wan producing through his Atomic Monster production company.

One of the maaaaaaany iconic shows created by prolific TV exec Glen A. Larson back in the day, Knight Rider launched the career of star David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a former policeman-turned-crime fighter who operates the super high-tech KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand), a heavily modified, virtually indestructible Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, as part of the experimental Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG) program. The original show ran from 1982 to 1986 but would then go into syndication, guaranteeing endless re-runs all over the world (including here in South Africa).

Besides for a bunch of TV movies and video games, the franchise would also produce a failed spinoff TV series, before being rebooted first in the late 1990s and then again in the late 2000s. Back in 2016, it had been announced that Fast & Furious franchise director Justin Lin had also been working on another TV series reboot but nothing came of it.

This new big screen reboot will reportedly be set in present-day and “maintain the anti-establishment tone of the original”. Former video games writer TJ Fixman (he wrote Resistance: Fall of Man and most of the Ratchet & Clank franchise including the brilliant 2016 reboot) is tapped to pen the screenplay. This will be his feature film writing debut.

As for Wan, there’s no word if he’s only producing or will direct as well. You certainly couldn’t ask for anybody more qualified. After starting his career as a horror maestro by creating the Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious, and Annabelle franchises, he pivoted massively to blockbuster action filmmaking with Furious 7 and Aquaman. Just those two movies combined earned over $2.6 billion worldwide. This is also not Wan’s first rodeo when it comes to reviving iconic 1980s TV series, as he’s the exec producer on the modern MacGyver reboot.

It’s still very early days on for this big-screen Knight Rider reboot though, so it will be interesting to see if this attempt to revive Michael Knight and KITT actually pans out. I’ve always loved the show, cheesiness and all, since I was a kid (and now there’s photographic proof below – Thanks, Mom!), so I’ve actually got a lot of nostalgia-driven hope for this one.

Last Updated: August 7, 2020