Knight Rider should require no introduction, but if you’re just emerging from beneath a rock you stowed yourself under back in early 1982, it’s the show where “David Hasselhoff stars as Michael Knight, a sleek and modern crime fighter assisted by KITT, an advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware, and nearly indestructible car.” That’s in quotes because I lifted it directly from Wikipedia. Said car (which could talk, by the way—kind of a big miss there, Wikipedia) was “played” by the just-released third-gen Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, replete with gloss-black paint, button wheel covers, and a tan interior slathered with switches, 7-segment displays, LEDs, a CRT monitor, and a yoke replacing the steering wheel. 
KITT was voiced by William Daniels (TV nerds will also recall him as Dr. Craig on St. Elsewhere) to complete the show’s absolutely perfect main-characters casting. Mock the Hoff all you like, but he was indelible as the leather-bejacketed Michael Knight and always played the role completely straight, no matter how absurd the action or ball-crushing the jeans. And wow, could the man sell a Turbo-Boost:
If you’re watching the video, keep your eyes peeled for later-season jumps executed as miniature effects, and appearances of the easily-spotted rubber-body KITT atop a VW Beetle chassis. As you can easily imagine (but will see captured on video when you click here), actual Pontiac Firebirds couldn’t begin to handle jump landings onto flat ground, hence the model work and novel Bug solutions.
Where was I? Oh, right: rebooting the show. It’s been done before! See Knight Rider 2000 (1991), Knight Rider 2010 (1994), Team Knight Rider (1997), and Knight Rider (2008). Or don’t see them, they’re not good. But now you’re in charge: how would YOU reboot the show? Sky’s the limit, and you have all the budget you need. Who do you cast as Michael Knight? What kind of car is KITT—and who voices it? What kind of show will your Knight Rider be? Prestige limited-series drama? Go for it. Weekly action-adventure for the kids, like the original? Sounds good. Dark and gritty, with a brooding antihero? A bit overdone, but hey, you’re the boss. Maybe Michael is Michelle this time around. Maybe it’s set in the steam-power era, and KITT can speak because of magic, not technology. Anything goes, because
You’re In Charge Of The Knight Rider Reboot. What’s Your Plan?
To the comments!
Michael Knight will be replaced with Michelle Knight, there’s still a serious shortage of female action leads, and it would give the new series a distinctive twist over the original instead of feeling like a lazy retread. Also, I’d want to cast someone mostly unknown who hasn’t done a lot of prior TV work, let’s see who’s out there
The car will be from whatever automaker offers the best product placement deal, with whichever model they chose to feature, the props department will be in charge of making whatever it is as cool as possible. Preference for something electric or at least PHEV
Also, she’ll have a platonic male best friend who’s kind of quirky and there for comic relief
“Also, she’ll have a platonic male best friend who’s kind of quirky and there for comic relief”
Just say gay. Everybody knows the quirky, comic platonic male best friend was totally gay.
The only exception was if it was made VERY clear to the audience he secretly lusted after her but she was way out of his league AND she was a frigid sociopathic workaholic.
That’s not going to be made clear in the first season though
Another commenter was saying that the creator of the 2003 Battlestar Galactica should do this which made me think that Katee Sackhoff needs to be Michelle Knight.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if there’s no turbo boost over a canyon, what are we even doing here?
Keep the Hoff, but he’s not a character, it’s just modern-day David Hasselhoff, and the car’s voice is only in his imagination. He goes out and “solves crimes”, but it turns out he’s delusional, so the cliffhanger at the end of season one would be that he’s been arrested for all the mayhem he has caused.
Since Hollywood has to change genders on things these days, the main character HAS to be a woman. I’d do with Millie Bobbie Brown from Stranger Things, since she already has an 80s vibe from that show. Set it up so her parents get killed, she moves out to a small town to some distant relatives house, and finds a derelict KITT in a barn, but it just looks like a shitty old firebird, hiding under a bunch of garbage.
She and a friend get the car running again, and it’s a total POS and again, a normal firebird. Something happens where her life is in danger, and the car ‘activates’ and interior transforms, becomes sentient and saves the day. She later learns her uncle or something was Hoff and somethign related to him is what killed her parents or something? Idk. Important part is the car could bounce between being a total piece of shit and being awesome depending on what the story needed. Could be entertaining.
I’m with you, except I nominate Summer Glau for Michelle Knight.
What ever happened to Summer Glau? She was like the nerd crush for a while there and now I can’t remember seeing her in anything since Sarah Connor Chronicles.
This one is easy! Micheal is a student driving instructor that only teaches after sunset. All sorts of hijinx ensue from buying vape pods, CBD gummies, and kegs of beer for his students, among other things. Micheal spends most of the time bitching about how much the VPN service and the optional heated ejector seats cost every month, hence the side hustle.
It’s basically Burn Notice if Michael Weston had to deal with supply chain issues.
Would watch that.
That show sucked the big one. Only watched it once or twice, thankfully the opiates kicked in and I fell asleep.
Reboot?
George Costanza in a leased Prius works for me.
Reboots? No. Someone needs to grow an imagination.
Imaginations are risky, there’s no room for risk in business. Sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes, and reboots of things that were already proven popular and profitable is where it’s at
The Hummer EV is fantastically stupid, but it also has t-tops and a stupid amount of power. After however long we’ve had Siri and Alexa (and Cortana fictionally), I’m assuming we’re casting a woman to voice new-KITT – I’m blanking on someone suitably aloof and academic-sounding to suit it, but TV-grade Cate Blanchett? It doesn’t matter who plays new-Michael Knight is, the whole point is to get someone pretty and let the car handle the acting. I’m not sure Taylor Lautner has done anything recently, so, why not?
Use the writers strike to ditch the whole reboot idea in the dustbin of intentionally forgotten history and when the strike is over hire someone to write and original car based idea for a show.
What? There is a writers strike? But the TV shows are all reality and they all suck. When did this happen 1998?
Since I’m only this for the money, I’m looking for endorsement bucks. So while a Tesla Model S with the yoke and FSD might be closest existing vehicle to KITT, I’m not gonna see one fucking cent from eMusk. So piss off Tesla!Your supposedly bulletproof, supposedly existing Cybertruck is not getting on the show!
Hmmm, what manufacturer has a steering yoke, a high-powered, 2-door GT, and never says “No” to an endorsement deal?
KnightRider 2030, starring a Lexus RC as KITT
Jodie Comer as Michelle Knight
Jodie Comer as the voice of KITT (you see Killing Eve? She can do both! Plus, I’m in this for the $$$, so one less actor to pay!)
KITT has to be a blacked-out Corvette Z06.
I swear, if this doesn’t come up soon on their youtube channel I’m going to be disappointed.
What kind of car is KITT and who voices it? That’s easy, the car is a third-gen Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, replete with gloss-black paint, button wheel covers, and a tan interior slathered with switches, 7-segment displays, LEDs, a CRT monitor, and a yoke replacing the steering wheel and he’s voiced by William Daniels.
Why did the previous remakes all fail? Because they changed the damn car! YOU NEVER CHANGE THE CAR!!! Look at the Dukes of Hazzard remake from several years back, sure it was stupid and not well received but it didn’t generate any hate. Why? Because they kept the General intact, troublesome roof art and all. Remember that A-Team movie a while back? No, nobody does, but same thing, they kept the cars the same and nobody hated it. Now, remember the Ghostbusters reboot a while back with half the cast of SNL in the lead roles? Remember everyone hating it? Remember all the negative headlines before it even came out? Story-wise it really wasn’t that bad but they changed the damn car and what have we learned? YOU NEVER CHANGE THE CAR!!! That’s right, just look at the subsequent Ghostbusters sequel that came out last year. They brought back the original Ecto-1 and everyone loved it.
As for who plays Michael Knight? He may be getting older but damnit I say stick with the Hoff, and if he’s not available, Peter Dinklage.
I thought William Daniels was dead. He’s not!
He’s getting up there, KITT might sound a little geriatric, but he’s still kicking!
You ever see the video of a drunk Hoff thing to eat a hamburger? Frickin’ awesome.
Which of us hasn’t been there with their own preferred food. Or worse hugging a toilet bowl? Except no daughter to take video and be cut out of the will? Hey maybe a drunk out of shape Hoff that team members have to stuff in to too tight jeans, remotely drive the car but pretend he is still great to get the program refunded?
So a ‘reality’ show?
Or, have the original car in the first episode, it gets destroyed at the end somehow, and the second episode introduces the 2023 Trailblazer replacement in a passing the torch thing
That’s how you generate hate mail.
Two words: Timothée Chalamet
Bad guy is an evil billionaire who runs the world’s top electric car company. They have a secret project to develop a car that is not only self-driving, but sentient. The prototype escapes from their research lab and joins up with the hero to go on adventures, but the big bad guy’s robot goon cars are always hot on their tail.
I’m in charge of the Knight Rider reboot…what do I do? Absolutely nothing. Come one? We are all tired of of reboots and rehashes of old stuff.
KITT to be voiced by H. Jon Benjamin
This is the way. He could basically just do Archer as a car and it would work.
Nice try, Warner Bros. There’s a writer’s strike on. I don’t cross picket lines.
Jack Black. On a Grom. Voiced by Alan Tudyk.
Holy shit I’d watch that
You’re this close to suggesting they dust off Heat Vision and Jack, except it was Jack Black on a Sportster voiced by Owen Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWgXDOAJ5s
Well yeah, that’s the obvious answer.
Actually, I’d dig Tenacious D with Kyle (in an over the top mullet wig, of course) as Michael and Jack as the voice of KITT.
Solving crimes by day in a Prius, and singing aTribute to the Trans Am by night.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tribute+tenacious+d
The greatest car ever made.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 gets damaged and they rebuild it as an N Vision 74 with fuel cell ‘turbo boost’. Voiced by David Hasselhoff, the lead actRESS is his daughter(Plot twist!) played by his daughter Hayley.
No DT plugs his I3 in a European electrical socket. He melds with the car. Of course on Torch can drive him.
I wrote my comment before reading yours – I also picked an N Vision 74 for KITT!
Best choice, IMO
Daniels was NOT Higgins on Magnum PI, that was John Hillerman.
As for reboot, I’d cast Hoff driving a Tesla and have both car and driver obliterated in a self driving mishap in the first (and last) episode. Two birds with one stone.
Oh, right! Editing …
Ooh tesla self driving accident ss a drunken Hoff is eating a cheeseburger. Car voice played by Sheldon Jim Parsons, who threatens suicide because he is making a mess of the dashboard. Then crash was it suicide by car or murder by nerd code
Higgins was played by John Hillerman, not William Daniels.
Absolutely! Hillerman was so good as Higgins you never realize he is not British, but from Texas. Even the British didn’t realize it.
He leans in to his Texas accent in Blazing Saddles
I wouldn’t reboot it. It will never live up to the perfection the original was to my 6 year old self. Also, Higgins on Magnum PI was played by John Hillerman, not William Daniels. Although he (William Daniels) was Mr. Feeny oh Boy Meets World.
Don’t do it. We’ll all have to argue with our ChatGPT-powered vehicles soon enough.
Ok. KITT is a Chevy Impala, and Michael is actually two brothers, and instead of fighting crime, they fight demons.
…nah, it’s been done.
YOU’RE ASKING ME TO REPLACE THE HOFF?!
HERESY!