Faces & Names: Vin Diesel ‘Kojak’ movie moves ahead

Quite some time ago Vin Deisel revealed that he would be making a big screen version of the hit television show Kojak, and the latest word is Universal has now found a writer to pen a new draft for the movie, reports Joblo. He is presently writing the Cube remake for Lionsgate with Roy Lee and Jon Spaihts producing and is also behind the spec World Breaker, the much-vaunted medieval-action epic being developed with and co-written by William Eubank (The Signal).

With all of this on his resume, it’s going to be interesting to see how he brings a tough, no nonsense detective to life.

Originally running on CBS from 1973 through 1978, “Kojak” followed the titular character, the bald-headed, lollipop-sucking cop Theo Kojak, memorably portrayed by Savalas, as he navigated the mean streets of 1970s New York City with style and attitude. The Furious 7 actor is attached to produce as well as to star.

(The property was briefly revived for a single-season TV show starring Ving Rhames, in 2005.).

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Gawthorne, who started off as a playwright before moving on to series Eastenders and Casualty, is picking up from a previous draft by James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

For now, it remains to be seen how this fits into Vin Diesel’s increasingly busy schedule.

Since there really hasn’t been any news on the project in the 3 years after it was made public, I was actually hoping it was dead and buried.