Knight Rider Movie Finally Getting Made… For TV

There have been plans to make a movie based on Knight Rider – the David Hasselhoff-starring TV series from the 80’s. He played Michael Knight, a lone crimefighter with a super-car that had artificial intelligence. For it’s time, it was cool for a while, but eventually it sank into a “rescue the babe of the week whose father is in danger” formula that was so popular back then.

The last I heard about the possibility of a movie being made based on the show was over two years ago, when Hasselhoff came out to shout down studio execs who wanted to put a version of the car (known as K.I.T.T.) in the movie that didn’t talk. To base a movie on a show where the main character interaction was between the hero and his super-cool talking car and not have the car talk did seem pretty stupid.

Now it seems that NBC wants to take a shot at a remake of the TV series by producing a two hour movie as a pilot.

Doug Limon, who directed The Bourne Identity has been tapped to produce the pilot. In a confusing statement over at Variety, which broke the story, they had this to say:

Success of ‘Transformers’ had a role in inspiring NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman’s decision to revive ‘Knight.’ 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.

Um, what?

Cars shifting shapes? Hoo boy, here we go.

Another twist will involve not only K.I.T.T. being the “hero” car, but there will be other “evil” cars as well. So instead of a unique, one of a kind vehicle, kind of like Batman having the Batmobile while everyone else just has a regular car, we’re going to have multiple vehicles with articial intelligence and built-in personalities.

Plus, if this gets picked up, look for it to be essentially an hour long car commercial (probably for GM). So I guess that’s where the multiple super-car angle comes in. I guess that gets around those pesky Tivo viewers who skip commercials.

I think Doug Liman is good, but I also think this is starting off sounding pretty shaky with a lot of extra gimmicks that will overshadow a real story. Hmmm… much like Transformers – yet another similarity.