Kurtzman, Orci Get CBS Greenlight for 'Hawaii Five-O'

It isn't just movies that are looking to the past; old is new again in TV as well. We'll forget the update of Knight Rider for the moment and get right to the good news, or better new, at any rate. CBS is looking to bring back Hawaii Five-O (and hopefully one of the all-time coolest theme songs ever).

One of TV's longest-running cop dramas, and certainly one of the landmark series in terms of location shooting, Five-O aired almost 300 episode on CBS between 1968 and 1980. The easiest way to look at the new version is that CBS is having great success with procedurals these days between the CSI and NCIS franchises and Lost provided a modern blueprint for shooting in Hawaii. This doesn't have to be the same characters, just the same formula. So that's fine. CBS Studios picked up a "sizable commitment" to the new series back in October, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and now the network (sort of a separate entity from CBS Studios) has given the show the greenlight. Now, for movie fans, this is significant because it's being co- produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who of course have worked with J.J. Abrams for several years (though not on Lost). But they were Alias producers and work on Fringe on top of all of their big films, like Trek and Transformers.

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Abrams Discusses Khan for 'Trek' Sequel...In Theory

This is not the first time the subject of Khan has come up in the past few months. Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman first broached the subject publicly this summer, during a conversation that also included J.J. Abrams. At the time, they positioned Khan in the best imaginable way: Javier Bardem. I mean, seriously, if you're going to do it, who would be better? Or to quote producer Damon Lindelof, "That's a no-brainer. That would be the most amazing thing ever."

Now Abrams has brought up the what if of Khan again, telling Ace Showbiz something surprising: Casting the role would require a lot of work. Really? Didn't we just go through that? "Now that we are in a parallel existence with what fans of the original series love so much, we could introduce any number of characters, settings, references and situations that the original series introduced," Abrams said. "Dealing with Khan would certainly be a challenge, but we had an equal challenge in finding our crew of the Enterprise."

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Shane Black Writing New 'Doc Savage' Movie

Any chance I get, I tell people to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, written and directed by Shane Black. It's an easier sell now than wehn it came out, thanks to Robert Downey Jr.'s ascendence. Bit it's a great, funny, weird little mystery movie.

Of course, Black is best knows as the writer of Lethal Weapon, and he's hammered out a few other good scripts, too, over the years. Now, Ain't It Cool News says he'll be writing a new version of the classic comic book character Doc Savage. Produced by the team of Orci and Kurtzman (Star Trek, Transformers), Doc Saveage will not be the complete overhaul a lot of these movies tend to be. In fact, the word is it will be based in the 1930s, much like the comic's origin.

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