I am not sure how well the idea of a talking stealth car will work in this day and age, it was certainly cool for its time, but with NBC set to bring back “Knight Rider” is certainly taking a bit of a risk.
Plan is to put together a two-hour pilot for the project with plans to air later this season. The Bourne Identity helmer Doug Liman is set to produce and is open to the idea of directing the pilot, which if all things go well could become a series as early as next fall.
For some reason the success of Transformers is what spurred on the idea. The Variety article goes on to say that the thinking is that smallscreen f/x have advanced to the point where it’d be feasible to have a weekly series in which cars shift shapes. I don’t remember K.I.T.T. doing a lot of shape shifting but I guess he will be doing more than talking in the new version. They are also exploring the idea of “evil” cars to offset K.I.T.T.
Oh, just as in Transformers there is also huge advertising potential such as how General Motors dominated the robots in disguise.
Dave Andron (“Raines”) is writing the pilot script and will serve as supervising producer alongside exec producers Liman and Dave Bartis (“The O.C.,” “Heist”) for Universal Media Studios and Dutch Oven Prods.
For the longest time there was talk of a feature film version of the ’80s classic, but those rumors quieted down long ago.