Ready to book ‘em again?
Paramount is working on a “Hawaii Five-O” feature with director Destin Daniel Cretton, coming off the astronomical success of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” The feature will be based on the 1968 CBS television series of the same name, which ran for 12 seasons from 1968 to 1980.
When it went off the air it was the longest-running police drama in the history of American television. It was famous for its jaunty theme song by Morton Stevens and the catch phrase “Boom ‘em, Danno!” which seeped into the pop culture in a profound way, with folks who had never even watched the show knowing the phrase.
Chris Bremner, who wrote “Bad Boys for Life,” is on board to pen the screenplay with “Jackie” scribe Noah Oppenheim. Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady put the package together with the estate of series creator Leonard Freeman. Casady will produce.
In the mid-1990’s, an attempted theatrical adaptation of the series was mounted. This was during the boom of movies based on 1960s television series – “The Brady Bunch,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Saint” and “The Addams Family” had all been hits for Paramount at the time. But a lawsuit between Paramount and the Freeman estate led to the project being canceled.
A new pilot was produced around the same time but wasn’t picked up.
In the early 2000s, a new feature version was attempted at DreamWorks which featured a script by Robert Towne but fell apart over demands from the then-producer George Litto, who had teamed with the Freeman estate.
Finally in 2010, a new series version of “Hawaii Five-O,” co-created by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Peter M. Lenkov, starring Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan, aired on CBS. It ran for 10 seasons and 240 episodes, finally wrapping up in 2020.
Cretton also has a live-action “Naruto” movie in the works with Lionsgate and, undoubtedly, another installment in the “Spider-Man” franchise simmering in the background.
Cretton is represented by WME and Goodman Genow, Bremner is represented by WME, Kaplan/Perrone and Johnson Shapiro and Oppenheim is represented by CAA and Entertainment 360.
