The creators of Cobra Kai are taking a shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist. Fresh off revitalizing the Karate Kid franchise, they’re taking on another icon of the 1980s in the form of Knight Rider, the beloved-but-cheesy NBC drama about a man and his artificially intelligent supercar. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald are currently in talks to bring the franchise to the big screen for the first time for Universal Pictures.
According to reports, the trio will produce and write the film, with Hurwitz and Schlossberg planning to direct it. After the success of Cobra Kai, the hit Netflix series about the later lives of 1980s karate rivals Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), which recently concluded its sixth and final season, the trio are fast becoming specialists in the revival of moribund properties. They’re also working on a spin-off of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off focusing on the two parking attendants who take a joyride in Cameron Frye’s Ferrari, and in a new take on Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. The Knight Rider film will also be produced by action maven David Leitch, who recently brought another cult 1980s TV series to the big screen in the form of The Fall Guy.
What Is ‘Knight Rider’ About?
Created by Glen A. Larson (Battlestar Galactica) in 1982, Knight Rider centers around Michael Long (David Hasselhoff), a police officer who’s recovered by the crime-fighting organization FLAG (Foundation for Law and Government) after being shot in the face and left for dead. Rebuilt with plastic surgery, he’s given the new identity Michael Knight and partnered with the Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT), a Pontiac Trans Am packed full of crime-fighting gadgets and the reassuring voice of William Daniels. FLAG is initially run by billionaire Wilton Knight (Richard Basehart), who’s killed in the pilot episode; afterward, Knight and KITT work for FLAG director Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare). They roam the highways of America, doing good deeds and battling foes like Wilton Knight’s evil son Garthe (also Hasselhoff) and the villainous supercar KARR (Peter Cullen).
Knight Rider ran for four seasons on NBC, from 1982 to 1986, before being cancelled. The series has been revived a number of times; Hasselhoff and Daniels returned for the futuristic TV movie sequel Knight Rider 2000, while a subsequent telefilm, Knight Rider 2010, only loosely adapted the concept. Team Knight Rider, which ran in syndication in 1997-1998, featured a whole squad of talking vehicles. A sequel series, also called Knight Rider, ran for a single season on NBC in 2008; it starred Justin Bruening as Michael Knight’s estranged son and Val Kilmer as an advanced KITT model.
Knight Rider is in development.
via Collider