Did no one besides The Blot know the Knight Rider television movie was coming out this Sunday, February 17th on NBC at 9/8 central? If only the people over at General Motors (GM) had read The Blot’s initial report on the upcoming movie that NBC is hoping does well enough in the ratings to parlay into a new fall series next year. If they had they would have known Arrested Development’s Will Arnett had been picked to voice the 2008 version of the Knight Rider talking car KITT.
You would think since the movie is premiering this weekend that everything was finalized and the show was ready to go, but of course you’d be mistaken. You see the television movie’s been completed for a while and while Arnett has already recorded all of his speaking parts, NBC is being forced to recast the role and rerecord all of KITT's audio because Arnett had to pull out due to “contractual reasons.” Why you might ask? Well, as it turns out “Arnett has been under contract as the voice of GMC Trucks” for many years. (link)
The problem is the new KITT is a Ford Mustang and evidently this potential conflict of interest just came to GM’s attention last week. They have since asked the actor to step down from the role. (link) Arnett is quoted as saying ''I was very excited at the prospect of playing the part of KITT in the new Knight Rider movie. However, because of a long relationship with General Motors as the voice of GMC Trucks, I had to respectfully withdraw from the project.'' (link) Talk about last minute hysterics.
Now, forgotten action star Val Kilmer (Top Gun, Willow, The Doors) has been pegged as the new voice of KITT and, in what can only be assumed was quite the rush job, has already completed recording all dialogue for the show’s debut this weekend. It’s a good thing for NBC that no actual scenes had to be shot or the movie might have had to be delayed. What bums The Blot out about all this is that even though NBC was given the golden opportunity to clean up a past mistake and cast William Daniels, the original voice of KITT, in the role that he originated, they still chose to go with a more established “star.” I could at least see Arnett as the voice of KITT, but Kilmer!?!
Come on…this show seems like even more of a train wreck now than it did before. Why oh why can’t the television networks and movie studios leave popular shows from our past alone instead of continually “re-imagining” them as completely worthless new movies and TV shows? Hopefully this new Knight Rider will be a one and done “television event” and we won’t be subjected to more NBC rehashing of old shows next season any more than we already have been with the Bionic Woman and now this!
