Provided that everything goes according to plan, Chris Pratt is on the verge of becoming one of the biggest stars in the world. Just this past weekend he voiced the lead character in the number one movie in America, starring as Emmet in Phil Lord and Chris Miller's The LEGO Movie, and coming up soon he will be front and center of two major blockbusters, starring in both James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy and Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World. It's a crucial moment in the young actor's career, so it's hard to understand why he would sign on for something as misguided as yet another relaunch of the Knight Rider franchise... but that's the rumor that is going going around.
We first learned about a possible Knight Rider movie this past summer when it was reported that The Weinstein Company had hired screenwriter Brad Copeland to pen the script, but now unnamed sources as Schmoes Know (via Bleeding Cool) are saying that both Chris Pratt and Danny McBride are in talks for the film's lead roles. While the site doesn't specify who would be playing what roles, the assumption is that Pratt would play Michael Knight - previously played by David Hasselhoff in the original series - while McBride will voice KITT, Michael's talking car.
If this rumor does turn out to be true, it would suggest that the tone of the new movie will be quite a lot different from both the 1982 series and the 2008 failed reboot. Rather than taking the serious action thriller route, this casting would suggest that The Weinstein Company is instead thinking about the film as a 21 Jump Street-esque action comedy. But we know so little about the new Knight Rider that this is basically all just conjecture and theory.
The original series, created by Glen A. Larson, began by following a police officer named Michael Long (Hasselhoff) who winds up getting shot and left for dead during an investigation. He is discovered and taken in by the mysterious millionaire Wilton Knight, who has some big plans to fight the crime in his city. After being nursed back to health, Michael Long is reborn as Michael Knight and heads into the city to fight crime with help from Wilton as well as the super car known as the Knight Industries Two Thousand, a.k.a. KITT.
Pratt has so many potential franchises on his plate right now that it's hard to 100% believe this story, but if you were to ask me if I ever wanted to see him star alongside Danny McBride in a film, my answer would be "hell yes." But is this the right move? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
