Lord & Miller Are Producing a GREATEST AMERICAN HERO Remake

In 1981, The Greatest American Hero was a godsend of a show to superhero-starved kids. It featured an ordinary school teacher (William Katt) who is given a super-powered suit by extraterrestrials and, together with a tough-as-nails FBI agent (Robert Culp) and an understanding girlfriend (Connie Sellecca), our hero navigated the use of the suit after losing the instructions. Week to week, you never knew what new power would be revealed. The show became the brief subject of controversy in its first season: Katt's character was named Ralph Hinkley, and 12 days after the show premiered would-be assassin John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan. The character's name was hastily changed to "Hanley" for the remainder of the first season, then changed back again for season two. Oh, the '80s.

Now it's 2015, and here come Phil Lord and Chris Miller with a plan to remake the series. (It's worth noting that they had a plan to remake it last year, but said plan fell apart.) According to Deadline, the producing team has a production pilot commitment from Fox, and directing the thing will be Sundance darling Rick Famuyiwa, writer-director of Dope. The original series had a comedic slant; one assumes a Lord & Miller reboot will lean even more heavily in that direction. What else will change? Even the title carries a different kind of baggage in 2015. And will my frequent exclamatory use of "GAH!" be taken away by the acronymization of this show? So many questions.

Fun fact: NBC attempted to reboot this show in 1986, under the title Greatest American Heroine. But the pilot never aired, and surfaced later in syndication packages of the original series. Like every other weird lost artifact from the '80s, you can buy it on DVD.