Amazon is going script-to-series on Starsky & Hutch, from James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy). A co-production with Sony Pictures Television Studios and a “continuation” of the original 1970s cop drama, said Amazon, the project will be a character-driven one-hour procedural.
Amazon said the series “deconstructs the buddy cop genre in the same entertaining way that Gunn did with the science fiction genre.”
Gunn is expected to executive produce, along with writing partners Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, and Original Film’s Neal Moritz and Pavun Shetty. Starsky & Hutch will be written by Brian and Mark, based on an idea by James.
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“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,” said Joe Lewis, head of comedy, drama and VR, Amazon Studios.
Starsky & Hutch is the first foray into television for James Gunn and his production company Troll Court Entertainment.
“When I was a kid, Starsky & Hutch was the first ‘adult’ show I ever saw, and I fell in love,” he said. “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.”
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Created by William Blinn and produced by Spelling-Goldberg Productions, the original series, which aired on ABC from 1975 to 1979, centered on two detectives, streetwise David Michael Starsky (played by Paul Michael Glaser) and by-the-book Kenneth Richard “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul), traversing the streets of fictional Bay City, Calif.
