Few pop-culture automobiles are as iconic as Knight Rider‘s K.I.T.T., the talking car who partnered with David Hasselhoff‘s Michael Knight to solve all sorts of crimes and mysteries. Following the initial run of the series in the ’80s, the concept got a series of TV movies and even a 2008 reboot, but hasn’t earned the same big-budget attention as other ’80s properties, until a new movie reboot was announced last summer. Hasselhoff, however, recently admitted that he had been working on his own revival of the concept when that reboot was announced, though he has faith that the filmmakers involved will do right by the property.
“The details I can share are I have an emotional hand in it and I have a passion,” Hasselhoff revealed to Consequence of Sound. “The guy who’s writing it is a major Knight Rider fan. He sent me a picture of him in the Knight Rider car. His name is T.J. Fixman. The concept, I don’t really know. I threw my hat in the ring as ‘nostalgia meets Knight Rider of today,’ which is not a new Knight Rider, but a continuation of it. They want to do a script that has my approval on it. Whether I’m in it or not, or whether I approve of it, the answer is: I don’t know.”
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He added, “But I had the rights for about 10 years to Knight Rider, and I couldn’t get a bite. And these guys have it now because of the timing, because of the resurgence of nostalgia, because the guy who’s doing it gets it. It’s not about a talking car. It’s about the relationship between Michael and KITT. And it’s also about the action and ‘one man can make a difference.’ And if they do that, I’ll probably support it. If they don’t do that, they’ve hassled The Hoff.”
When the reboot was announced, it was described as a “present-day take that will maintain the anti-establishment tone of the original.”
The timing of the project does come with some risks, as properties based entirely on nostalgia haven’t been especially successful in recent years. While McG’s Charlie’s Angels films or Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street films found the right balance of honoring the spirit of its predecessors while also reinventing the source material, films like CHiPs or Fantasy Island, both based on the ’70s and ’80s series of the same names, failed to impress audiences or critics. Similarly, despite the potential of the concept already being proven on the big screen, Elizabeth Banks’ Charlie’s Angels fell short of its predecessors’ success.
Stay tuned for updates on the Knight Rider reboot.
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