‘Aquaman’ and ‘The Conjuring’ director James Wan and his Atomic Monster partner Michael Clear are collaborating with Spyglass Media Group to create a big screen version of the 1980s action series ‘Knight Rider’, which starred David Hasselhoff.  TJ Fixman is penning the screenplay.  Judson Scott will executive produce.

The original ‘Knight Rider’ TV series, created by Glen A. Larson, aired on NBC from 1982-86, and centered on Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight, a former police officer turned secret government agent, who cruised into adventures in his talking, computerized Pontiac Firebird, named KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand), voiced by William Daniels (Dr. Mark Craig on ‘St. Elsewhere’, Mr. Feeny on ‘Boy Meets World’).

In 2018, the rights to ‘Knight Rider’ were held by The Weinstein Company, who planned to turn the concept into a comedy starring John Cena as Michael Knight, with Kevin Hart supplying the voice of KITT.  It wasn’t revealed what the tone of the Spyglass Media/Atomic Monster adaptation will be.

There were a few attempts to revive ‘Knight Rider’ over the years.  Hasselhoff and Daniels returned for the 1991 TV movie, ‘Knight Rider 2000’.  However, the 1994 TV movie, ‘Knight Rider 2010’ featured neither, and was set in the future.  In 1997, a syndicated series, ‘Team Knight Rider’ aired its one and only season.  Larson co-created this update, but instead of one hero and talking vehicle, there were five of each.  Then in 2008, NBC had ambitious plans for a reboot, also created by Larson.  Hasselhoff turned up in the TV movie/pilot episode to pass the baton on to a new generation of crimebusters, including a character that turned out to be his son, Michael “Mike” Traceur (Justin Bruening).  Val Kilmer provided the voice of the new KITT on this series.  But it was a flop.  Even though NBC initially ordered 22 episodes, it had the show entirely retooled after the first 13 aired to low ratings, and when that failed to improve things, it cut its order down to 17, and canceled it after that.

Wan’s latest movie, a low-budget horror flick, ‘Malignant’, is in post-production.  He is set to executive produce and direct the pilot for the Netflix series ‘The Magic Order’, and at some point, he is expected to return to helm the sequel to ‘Aquaman’.

Fixman is a video game writer, having worked extensively on the ‘Ratchet & Clank’ series, plus ‘Resistance 2’, ‘Overstrike’, and the upcoming ‘Past Midnight’.

Scott served as executive producer of ‘Annabelle Comes Home’ and co-producer of ‘The Curse of La Llorona’.

Are you excited at the thought of a film version of ‘Knight Rider’?

 

Source: Deadline