Steve Keller and Mike Stone are back on “The Streets of San Francisco.”
CBS is developing a contemporary remake of the classic 1970s cop series that starred Michael Douglas and Karl Malden.
Feature writer Sheldon Turner (“The Longest Yard”) and “Numbers” producer Robert David Port are penning the script, with Simon West on board to direct the potential pilot.
CBS Par TV, which owns the rights to Quinn Martin Prods.’ original series, is producing the new take that has received a script order from the network.
Turner and Port, a certified member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, had worked on reinventing “Streets” for the past seven months. They spent time in San Francisco, riding along with SFPD cops.
The remake will keep key elements from the original series: the title, the names of the two main characters and, of course, the backdrop of the City by the Bay. But the main focus is to bring the spirit of the original “Streets” into the new reincarnation, Turner said.
“The times are very similar — it was the Vietnam War in the 1970s and the Iraq War now,” he said. “There is the same sort of tension between generations, and we wanted to carry that to the new series.”
Turner compared the 21st century Keller and Stone to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
“One, like Obama, wants to be active and believes in rehabilitation, while the other one, like McCain, doesn’t quite believe in rehabilitation and believes that the enemy is the enemy,” Turner said.
Turner and West will executive produce the new “Streets,” which also will feature elements of a traditional crime procedural. Port and West’s producing partner, Jib Polhemus, serves as co-exec producer.
While such classic cop series as “Starsky & Hutch” and “Miami Vice” have made the leap to the big screen, TV remakes, like Dick Wolf’s 2003 attempt to revive “Dragnet,” have been rare.
Turner and West are repped by CAA. Port, an Oscar winner for the short “Twin Towers,” is repped by UTA. (partialdiff)
