Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels and Knight Rider. What do they all have in common? They were all beloved series from decades ago that were remade at some point in the last decade and failed. Maybe the problem was that those remakes were taking themselves too seriously. And then take 21 Jump Street. The cop series was rebooted as a feature film, aiming for action-comedy rather than drama, and it hit. Perhaps the secret is embracing the camp with a blend of humor, nostalgia and the right amount of updating. This theory would also explain why the Charlie's Angels film did so much better than ABC's attempt at a drama series. NBC's possible reboot of Remington Steele may be taking a page out of Jump Street's book, as the project is said to be a comedy.
Deadline has reported that NBC's eying a possible reboot for the series, which launched the career of Pierce Brosnan. David Ronn and Jay Schirick are on board to pen the script, while Ruben Fleischer is set to direct. The comedy has been given a script commitment plus penalty, so it seems it's still at the early stages of development at this point.
Making it a comedy may not be a huge stretch from the source material, as the original series, which debuted in 1982 and ran for five seasons, is described as a dramedy. The show starred Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist and centered on Laura Holt, a private detective who makes up a male superior named Remington Steele when she discovers that clients are apprehensive about hiring a woman. Brosnan is a former thief and con man who assumes Steele's fake identity. From the description of the reboot, it sounds like this will be something of a sequel, as Deadline says the reboot will follow Olivia Holt, the daughter of Remington Steele and Laura Holt. She reopens her parents once-world-famous Remington Steele Detecive Agency and fnds herself falling into some of the same hilarious, action-packed romantic entanglements of her parents.
Casting should be interesting for this one, assuming the project gets to the pilot stage. In the meantime, it sounds like comedy is the right direction to go with this project.
Here's the opening theme for the original series:
Reviving popular 80s material is nothing new, but taking the story to the next generation of characters sequel-style seems to be a more frequent attempt. There's TNT's Dallas, of course, which is one of the more successful revivals out there. While CBS tried to do something similar with Beverly Hills Cop, but that ended up not going forward. And then there's the potential Rambo reboot, which may or may not center on the offspring of John Rambo. Specifics on the plot of that haven't been divulged yet.
