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NBC Shifts Focus Of 'Knight Rider' Movie To A Ford And Soldier Back From Iraq

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By WALT BELCHER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 13, 2008

Updated: 02/13/2008 05:11 pm

After bringing back "Bionic Woman" and "American Gladiators," NBC will roll out a new "Knight Rider" on Sunday night.

So far, "Gladiators" has worked while "Bionic" tanked.

If the two-hour "Knight Rider" revs the audience into high gear, it could become a series by the fall.

The premise of the movie is essentially the same as the 1980s series. The story followed a square-jawed young man who battled bad guys with the help of a souped-up talking car that had an attitude.

The car and its driver, Michael Knight, had a close relationship not unlike that of Mr. Peabody and Sherman or Wilbur and Mr. Ed.

The original Knight was an undercover cop wounded in the line of duty and left for dead.

After getting a new face and identity, he becomes an agent for the secret Foundation for Law and Government, where he's partnered with a specially equipped Pontiac Trans Am, KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand).

KITT could hit superspeeds and fly through the air thanks to "turbo boost." The car was run by a know-it-all computer voiced by character actor William Daniels ("St. Elsewhere," "The Graduate").

Michael Knight was played by David Hasselhoff, who went on to star in "Baywatch."

He also became a singing sensation in Austria, a judge on "America's Got Talent" and the star of an embarrassing YouTube video in which he is intoxicated and trying to eat a hamburger off the floor.

Hasselhoff has a cameo in the new TV movie, which airs at 9 p.m.

Producer David Bartis calls it a sequel.

"We are taking a light approach in that this is a cool guy with a cool car in the tradition of those classic action dramas of the 1980s," he said in a recent telephone news conference.

The film was not available for preview. Bartis said he couldn't give away too many surprises but that the new KITT, a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500KR, can change color, shift into different shapes (a Volkswagen perhaps) and go into an "attack mode."

"It can repel bullets and repair itself," Bartis says. "The effects are as good as any $100 million-plus movie."

The voice of the talking computer is supplied by actor Val Kilmer, a former Batman and persnickety kind of actor who takes great pains to really get into character.

Kilmer replaced actor Will Arnett, who had to drop out because he is under contract to do voice work for GMC trucks. GMC didn't want him playing a Ford.

Soap opera actor Justin Bruening ("All My Children") plays the new crime-fighting driver, Mike Tracer, a 23-year-old ex-Army Ranger who is jaded and lost after serving in Iraq.

At this point, viewers are probably more interested in the car than Bruening, who was about 4 when the original "Knight Rider" debuted. He says he remembers seeing reruns of the show, which inspired him to run around his house in his pj's pretending to drive KITT.

Deanna Russo ("NCIS," "The Young and the Restless") co-stars as Sarah Graiman, a 24-year-old Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University and the daughter of KITT's creator, Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison).

Sydney Tamiia Poitier plays Carrie Rivai, a tough FBI agent who joins the crime-fighting team.

Bartis said stunt work with cars has come a long way since the 1980s. For example, Bruening and Russo actually were inside the KITT stunt car during the chase scenes.

"We had a driver on top of the car in a steel cage," he says. "So the expressions on their faces are the real reactions to what was happening."

The idea to bring back "Knight Rider" came from NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman, who reportedly was impressed by the success of the live-action film update of the "Transformers."

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