Title: T.J. Hooker
Release Date: To Be Announced
Studio: Unknown
Director: Chuck Russell ("The Mask," "Eraser," "The Scorpion King")
Writer: Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson (writing team of "Tremors," "Short Circuit"; cowriters of "Wild Wild West")
Cast: None announced yet.
Premise: T.J. Hooker is a 15 year veteran uniform cop in the L.A.P.D. known for his bravery and cocksure attitude when bringing down bad guys. In this movie version, the story will center around his relationship with his father.
Based Upon: The popular 1980s ABC cop show, "T.J. Hooker," starring William Shatner. Read more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.J._Hooker
Preview Thoughts: The biggest movie trend this year has been the remake, but Hollywood is still fond of reviving old TV shows, and the hot decade right now is the 1980s, with movies based on "The A-Team," "MacGyver" and "Magnum P.I." in the works. This latest wave follows the 1970s remakes from a few years ago, when our theaters were full of movies like "Charlie's Angels", "Dukes of Hazzard" and "Starsky & Hutch." And so, the latest old TV show favorite to get picked for a big screen redo is "T.J. Hooker," the 1980s role that allowed William Shatner to be known for something other than for playing Captain Kirk in "Star Trek." Shatner later went on to have yet another, third TV role as Denny Crane in "Boston Legal," and yet, despite both that and "T.J. Hooker," he's still best known as... Captain Kirk.
One could wonder if the timing of the news of the "T.J. Hooker" revival isn't a bit curious coming just two months after the huge box office and critical success of the "Star Trek" reboot, as it showed that a hot young new actor could step into a role considered definitively "Shatnerian," and yet somehow redefine the character as their own. So, that opens the door for someone to take on the role of T.J. Hooker.
Something that I find very interesting about the premise of this movie is that it revolves around the relationship between T.J. and his father, which I don't think is something that the actual TV show touched upon much. Is it possible that this is being done so that the father role could go to... William Shatner? With no further information known, I wonder if it's possible that this movie might actually be a sequel of sorts to the TV show, with T.J. actually being T.J. Junior, and William Shatner could actually end up costarring as the original T.J. Hooker, who like Shatner himself would be in his 80s by the time this movie is actually made (as of this writing, William Shatner is 78).
Regardless of whether that bit of speculation turns out to be true, this idea of a "T.J. Hooker" movie could either be a disaster or surprisingly awesome. The TV show straddled a fine line between camp (see: Heather Locklear's tight uniform and Shatner's over the top line deliveries) and fairly straight police drama. "T.J. Hooker" also stood out for being one of the few cop shows to focus on actual uniform cops, whereas most shows focus more on plain clothes detectives.
Finally, an article about "T.J. Hooker" couldn't be finished without mentioning that the show costarred poor Adrian Zmed, who seemed like a promising new actor at the time, and then... disappeared into obscurity. You've got to be thinking that Zmed, upon hearing the news of this movie, is sitting by his phone, hoping to get the call that they'll want him to put in a cameo !
Today's News (from Variety):
"T.J. Hooker" is headed for the bigscreen as an action comedy with David Foster, Ryan Heppe and series creator Rick Husky producing.
Chuck Russell ("The Scorpion King," "The Mask") is in talks to direct. The writing team of Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson will script the story, which focuses on the relationship between the title character and his father.
No actors have been cast yet for the feature.
The TV series, produced by Aaron Spelling, debuted in 1982 on ABC and ran for five seasons, the last on CBS. William Shatner starred as a no-nonsense patrol sergeant, with Adrian Zmed, Heather Locklear, Richard Herd and James Darren as co-stars.
Husky has long retained the feature rights to the project, according to Heppe.
"The series was the poster child for cop TV shows in the 1980s with great stunts, so we think there's a fun movie to be made from it," Heppe said.
Foster, Heppe and John Hyde are producing.
Source: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005660.html
