Creators: Forget Knight Rider Movie

At NBC’s up-front panel on the upcoming Knight Rider, series creators Doug Liman and Dave Bartis said that fans should “forget” the two-hour pilot movie that aired earlier this year.

Liman and Bartis say that while many of the faces will be the same, the new series will be different. One big change is the addition of executive producer Gary Scott Thompson, a writer for the Fast and the Furious movie franchise.  Thompson is reportedly being brought in to make the show as “fast and furious” as those movies.

The producers say even the overall look  and the character of KITT will be tweaked.

“The character KITT is evolving. And we’ve mapped out through 13, through 20, through — into a second season, actually, already and what this character is,” said Thompson. “If I told you everything, I’d be giving up the entire season. But I will pose this question to each and every one of you. Why would you put artificial intelligence into a car? And that’s the question we asked ourselves, and it has a bigger answer.”

Also, the series is adding a larger supporting cast for Michael Traceur and KITT.  

“The idea is to assemble a whole team,” said Thompson, somewhat dismissively to a question about the additional cast members. “And it’s going to get pretty boring in today’s age to watch a guy in a car talk for 43 minutes. No offense to anyone, but we live in an age where you have seen Mission: Impossible, Bourne Identity, the new Batman movies, Iron Man, and the audience wants that, and they are looking for that.” 

The producers said that while David Hasseloff has given his blessing to the new series, he won’t be particapting in the revival.  Also, the producers said that movie’s excessive focus on the car will be reduced in the new series.

“Look, even Ford said it was way too much in the two-hour, and we are trying to avoid doing that. But we have a Ford car, and we are going to use the Ford product for that car, and that’s just because we think the car is cool,” said Thompson.

Knight Rider will air on Wednesdays this fall on NBC.