Funny just last night I was half asleep in bed, flipping through the channels and trying with pitiless resolve to swat a fly, when Starsky and Hutch, (the one with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) appeared on TV.
Underrated, I thought, laughing at a particularly funny scene I now can’t recall. This should’ve been bigger.
Apparently someone in Hollywood felt the same because under the watchful eyes of The Guardians Of The Galaxy franchise writer/director James Gunn, scriptwriters Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn and Sony Pictures Studio, a re-booted Starsky & Hutch project is in development at Amazon.
The hour-long episode series will further develop the buddy cop theme of its predecessors, focusing on detectives David Starsky and Kenneth ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson as they solve crime and (hopefully) bring back the bell-bottom jean.
As legend goes, James Gunn’s brother, Brian, along with cousin Mark, came up with the idea to resurrect the movie for television audiences between writing Vols. 2 and 3 of The Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Joe Lewis, head of comedy, drama and VR at Amazon Studios had this to say about the family affair: “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 & Hutch.”
I’m also reminded of a quote James Gunn delivered years ago about what a writer can really bring to any narrative: “The writer’s genetic inheritance and her or his experiences shape the writer into a unique individual,” he said. “It is this uniqueness that is the writer’s only stuff for sale.”
As for how that uniqueness will play out in the groovy tale, here’s what the writer, responsible in large part for bringing The Guardians of the Galaxy franchise to a $1.6+ billion payday, said: “When I was a kid, Starsky & Hutch was the first ‘adult’ show I ever saw, and I fell in love,” said James Gunn. “It instilled in me a lifelong love of gritty street shows, of killer 70’s threads, and muscle cars. So when Neal Mortiz asked me if I wanted to be a part of an all new Starsky & Hutch on TV, I was instantly intrigued. I teamed up with the two writers I trusted most in the world to work with us, my brother Brian Gunn and my cousin Mark Gunn and together we came up with a show that I’m really proud of. At Amazon I believed we would have the most freedom to create something that is different, challenges the audience, and that strays outside the parameters of genre from time to time.”
