Big Screen KNIGHT RIDER Gets A Screenwriter

Popular 80s television series Knight Rider is zooming its way towards the big screen. The Weinstein Company has hired Brad Copeland to draft a screenplay that will bring its story of a trouble shooter who travels the country in a high-tech, computerized Trans Am.

The LA Times notes that the project will be a “somewhat higher-budget, more action-oriented movie than Weinstein’s typical prestige fare,” which makes Copeland’s hiring a bit strange. The writer is a veteran of the Arrested Development television series writing staff, wrote the 2007 comedy Wild Hogs and has been attached to a big screen adaptation of Gilligan’s Island. That certainly isn’t the resume I would think that one would be looking for when hiring a writer to pen a car movie in a post-Fast And Furious world.

The original television series debuted in 1982 and was an immediate hit for NBC. It ran for four years and launched its star David Hasselhoff into worldwide stardom. A revival series was attempted in 2008 but it was cancelled after 17 episodes aired. The new film would very likely be a fresh telling of the Knight Rider lore, though Hasshelhoff has expressed a desire to be a part of it, but to me that would be like letting Adam West pop back up in a modern Batman film.