‘Starsky and Hutch’ TV reboot lands at Amazon
LOS ANGELES: Online retail giant Amazon has landed the “Starsky and Hutch” TV reboot from “Guardians of the Galaxy” mastermind James Gunn.
Amazon has handed out a script-to- series commitment to the drama from Gunn, his brother Brian Gunn and cousin Mark Gunn.
The potential series is slated to be a continuation of the original 1970s show and is described as a character- driven drama that deconstructs the buddy- cop genre in the same way that Gunn did with sci-fi and “Guardians of the Galaxy”. The project is a co-production between Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television Studios.
“Chekhov said if you have a gun in the room, it’s going to go off. We can’t wait to see what three Gunns do with ‘ Starsky and Hutch’,” Amazon head of comedy, drama and VR Joe Lewis said in a statement.
The “Starsky and Hutch” project is Gunn’s fi rst TV foray for his Troll Court Entertainment banner. Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn are writing the script based on an idea that James Gunn developed between writing “Guardians 3” and starting pre-production on the feature.
The project hails from Sony Pictures Television Studios, which controls the TV rights to the intellectual property and is the worldwide distributor for the original series. Warner Bros. Pictures controls the feature fi lm rights. The new “Starsky and Hutch” has been in the works since last year.
“We are thrilled to be working with Amazon on this unique approach to a characterdriven procedural,” said Jason Clodfelter, co-president at Sony Pictures Television Studios. “The Gunns completely surpassed our expectations while paying respect to the original.”
“Starsky and Hutch” fi rst premiered in 1975 as a movie of the week on ABC. The series was created by William Blinn and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg’s SpellingGoldberg Productions. Starring David Soul as Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson and Paul Michael Glaser as David Michael Starsky, the show ran for four seasons and nearly 100 episodes.
“When I was a kid, ‘Starsky and Hutch’ was the fi rst ‘adult’ show I ever saw, and I fell in love,” James Gunn said. “It instilled in me a lifelong love of gritty street shows, of killer ‘ 70s threads, and muscle cars. So when Neal Moritz asked me if I wanted to be a part of an all-new ‘Starsky and Hutch’ on TV, I was instantly intrigued.”