Ron Moore To Remake The Wild Wild West For CBS November 11, 2010
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Celebrity,DS9,Sci-Fi,TNG , trackback
Veteran Star Trek writer/producer Ron Moore has once again been tasked to reboot a classic TV show for a modern audience. The man who rebooted Battlestar Galactica is now headed to the old west to remake The Wild Wild West for CBS. More details below.
CBS looks to Trek Vets To Revamp Wild Wild West
CBS is once again bringing back a classic show for a modern audience. This time it is the action-adventure Western The Wild Wild West, which originally ran for four seasons from 1965-1969. According to Deadline CBS is currently in negotiations with Star Trek vet Ron Moore (who also successfully rebooted the Battlestar franchise) to bring revamp The Wild Wild West for a 21st century audience. Moore will be joined by former CSI exec producer Naren Shankar, who also worked with Moore as a science consultant and story editor on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Shankar and Moore are writing and executive producing the remake of The Wild Wild West. The original series focused on two secret service agents in the post Civil War west.
Artemus Gorden (Ross Martin) and James West (Robert Conrad) in "The Wild Wild West")
Along with Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci’s successful revamp of Hawaii Five-0, this is the second year in a row that CBS has looked to writer/producers who had worked in the Star Trek franchise to help redo their classic properties. Hopefully someday soon CBS will look to bring Star Trek back to the small screen.
Speaking of crossovers between Star Trek and The Wild Wild West, both shows ran concurrently. This means that both shared many of the same guest actors. Here is a video from YouTube showing the Trek/Wild Wild West crossovers.
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Well, as long as we don’t get a peek at Will Smiths pecker in the opening credits, it might be worth a look…
Don’t. Just don’t.
Well I never saw the classic show, but I think if Ron Moore’s involved, it has a good shot.
Oh please do it.. 5 O is pretty damn good.. I could imagine that Wild, Wild West could be great with the right casting.. Now who to play West and Gordon.. The world wonders…
I liked the BSG remake, the V remake, and the Star Trek reboot. Didn’t care for the Kolchak remake, the Knight Rider reboot, the Bionic Woman reboot or the Will Smith WWW remake. I’ll give this a look to satisfy my curiosity.
Just as long as it’s nothing like the Will Smith movie, I may give it a look. But, c’mon, another remake….
The corporate idea gas tank is finally on empty out there, ain’t it?
I think the Will Smith movie would have worked if it was set in modern times not in the 1860′s. Robert Conrad could have played the President for a nice tie in.
Instead we got possibly one of the worst movies ever made.
Nathan Fillion as West
and Alan Tudyk as Gordon
Now I’d definitely watch that reboot!
#8
I remember reading an article back around that time that said Conrad was asked to cameo in the movie but turned them down, saying it was garbage.
Good man.
Uhhh….9 has a good idea. I used to come home from school every afternoon to great re-runs of Wild Wild West. Next to Star Trek it’s one of my all time favorites. Bring it back Ron but please do it right.
So what does this mean for James Cawley’s WWW plans?
I want to see West and Gordon’s archenemy, Miguelita Loveless. She should be a dwarf, just like Michael Dunn was.
I expect that James will continue on with his version of TWWW, just like he hasn’t quit making TOS shows since the new movie.
I don’t think I could have less interest in this project. I’m sure Moore will do a good job, but will anyone care?
What now? Artemus Gorden a woman?
I love the original series and I welcome a new version of it, but having witnessed Moore’s prior work, I’m not convinced he can handle the humor that is needed to make the show work.
Have we learned nothing from Brisco County Jr and Firefly? Obvious sci-fi westerns don’t last on TV.
):
…I don’t know, maybe this time it will. It does have brand recognizability on it’s side.
I think it largely depends on the quality of the final product and proper promotion.
If Moore is consistent, West is troubled and Gordon was in jail. Both will be at each others’ throats and struggle with suicide. Isn’t that what Moore’s BSG was all about?
It will be just another reboot, with only a slight resemblance to the original.
In order for this to appeal to a new modern audience they will completely re work it…. sigh.
I still plan on doing ours this January.
This better have giant spiders.
James – Looking forward to it!
#20
Mr. Cawley, is there some way we can have you placed in charge of Viacom… or at least Paramount? :D
Ahem…another Gene L. Coon show!
Happy Belated Marine Corps Birthday, Mr. Coon. Having a beer with Chesty in Heaven’s scenes, no doubt.
I’m with comment 9 above. (Sorry, I can’t in good conscience type S*bok)
Nathan Fillion rocked and Firefly was all too brief.(Even if it did poke fun at the Federation) -
He would make a great James West.
So help me, if Moore makes it too dark, I’m gone. (and I was a Galactica fan… that is until the lest ep)
As an aside, it will be interesting to see where the Galactica Universe goes now that David Eick has the next series
Mister Cawley- Nice to see you checking in here. Looking forward to your next Phase 2 release.
Captain Cawley, I will totally watch yours. I have far more faith in it than I ever would in a WWW reboot at Moore’s hands. Keep up the good work making internet a medium for enjoyable entertainment.
I think Letterman was right. CBS is deciding its lineup by looking at an old TV Guide from 1968.
That being said, I’ll give Ron the benefit of the doubt for now. He’s enough of a fanboy that I think he has it in him to do the old show justice.
Still eagerly awaiting Mr. Cawley’s version, as well, but all in all, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
How long before they bring back “Gunsmoke”?
Well, I may be the odd one out, but I liked the movie version of WWW!
A Ron Moore “Wild, Wild, West”; Jim West will be an alcoholic woman named Jamie West, and Artemis Gordon will be revealed to be a cyborg by the end of the show.
And I almost forgot; Loveless will have issues with his mother (whom he’ll see and talk to in his head)! ; )
I kid; actually Ron Moore’s BSG is one of favorite shows. It broke new ground in space opera and was pitch perfect in execution. But I just don’t think “WWW” really has an audience these days; it’s a dry well IMO.
Ron Moore; please devote your considerable talents to a more worthy story, OK? Think long and carefully before you commit to something.
I have a feeling this remake won’t make it past the pilot stage, just like last year’s abandoned “Rockford Files” remake.
Remakes are high risk these days, with BSG the only clear success story.
I”ll be surprised if CBS green-lights another remake for next season.
Even “Hawaii Five-O” has been only a modest success (it’s now losing its timeslot to ABC’s “Castle”, something CBS can’t be happy about.) Although I thought this week’s “Danno’s ex partner is killed” episode was its best yet: good actual police work, and it actually addressed the mole in HPD that we heard about a few weeks earlier.
#21 Amorican
Do you know anything about spiders?
Wow, someone went to a lot of work for that video mash-up. Great work!
31
iirc the talarian hook spider has legs half a meter long
30
that 5-0 ep was terrible
I’ll give it a shot! If it’s a done I. A funky, steampunk kind of style, it could be great fun! I’m not sure if the original’s had much mainstream screentime here in the UK! Growing up in the 1980s, it’s the sort of show I’d have embraced if it had been in evidence. Didn’t bother with the Will Smith incarnation, so I have no axe to grind about this version.
Ron Moore managed to make a Galactica that was wildly different from, yet hugely faithful to, the original. WWW ought to be in with a shot!
My other hope is that Blood & Chrome will do well and become the basis of a Galactica big screen franchise rather than all that Singer/Larson remake rubbish!
I hope it has the charm and fun of the original. Plus the great style and music. I fear not though. Ah, my childhood.
Have to roll my eyes at Ron Moore being involved in yet another remake. The guy has made a career out of remaking other people’s work. I would think at some point he might want to man up and create something himself. Of course, when he’s tried they’ve all failed, but still.
OMG. I absolutely LOVED WWW as a youth. It was the perfect blend of adventure, brawn, basket (you know what I mean) and pseudo-scifi. If Ron Moore is involved in a reboot, it will totally work. Bring. It. On.
Deadwood meets Human Target
This could work, BUT doubt it on network tv.
This is one of those shows I grew up on…Star Trek, Lost in Space, and The Wild Wild West (no comma)
Spoke to Barbara Luna at a convention once about her crossover. She was helping to free her enslaved people or something in that episode. She remembered it and was surprised I knew it and was talking about Wild Wild West instead of Star Trek with her. Love Barbara Luna!
I fear this doesn’t have the bleak, colorless music and feel that a lot of the shows go out of their way to do these days. The original show had themes and energy and fun and character. Miguelito’s theme was always creepy and way cool to me. In keeping with the James Bond thing it was capitalizing on….it also had cool gadgets and Robert Conrad was suave and charming (this I feel will be a casualty of the show – as it doesn’t seem to be in vogue to be either of those things in today’s world or version of James Bond) And Conrad beat the hell out of people. Fun TV! Again, ah my youth.
Charlie Sheen as West, Gary Sinise as Gordon. There’s my 2c worth.
Looking forward to your WWW, James Cawley!
I too am awaiting Cawley’s WWW. So sorry that James will not get a chance to test for the James West part.
Oh and, ex na on the Gunsmokena…..
I would much rather see a remake of “Pettycoat Junction”
That’s my 5 cents.
Hands down, my favorite TV show as a wee tot in the late 60s.
Oddly enough, I’ve been watching my WWW DVD sets recently. The show still holds up pretty well, even if it isn’t nearly as deep or thematic as Star Trek was.
With steampunk all the rage, I can see this reboot having some appeal, but I doubt they’ll capture what made the original so … original.
I wish they’d do it as a period piece, and by that I don’t mean “set in the late 19th century,” which is a given. I mean, as if it were being produced in the late 1960s. In other words: minimize the political correctness. Give it a little “Mad Men” swagger. Mark my words: Jim and Arte will have a sexy female sidekick on their team who can stand toe to toe with James West in a fight. No thanks.
Scott B. out.
Thank gods n gorns for Bill Theiss. So many of those lovely ladies were wasted in hoop skirts and petticoats.
Sure, WWW could work again. IF they find the right cast and chemistry. Please, no gratuitous time travelers or anachronistic 2010ish cultural references.
There are issues from the 1860s-70s that would work well today. Civil rights, hydro-mining, government corruption (Grant was king of that, btw.)
Ron, were you out there…. just recall the Space:1899 gaming system of 30 years ago…. capture a bit of that. But not too much, or I suspect we’ll see you set WWW up with some secret futurist group behind the scenes doing all sorts of “modern” science unbeknownst to anyone. Sort of a bit of the PAX Roddenberry concept, and imagine what if they existed then… be they time traveling from the future, or the long lost relic of a BSG like mitochondrial memory re-established.
But, throw everyone for a loop and do it straight. Just like westerns in the 50′s and 60′s were about 1950′s and 1960′s actors acting out the events of the 1860′s throught 1890′s, it would be more interesting to see 2010 actors portraying that generation. The characterizations would be much deeper now, more interlaced, and… more gritty?
As for casting, Nathan Fillion would be perfect, but Castle isn’t getting cancelled anytime soon by ABC. How about a look at casting PAUL BLACKTHORNE. He showed a lot of potential in The Dresden Files, and since The Gates is cancelled, he won’t be doing that. It also gives an excellent idea of having Artemus portrayed by TERRENCE MANN.
Loved the chemistry the two had on Dresden. It would play perfectly for a rethought WWW.
And then for President Grover Cleveland? Why, Robert Conrad of course!
All I have to say is….
NO Will Smith to play James West!
For me,
Sherry Jackson and Alyssa Milano have the same “look”.
I love them both.
There were quite a few missteps in Capria. I really couldn’t buy into the mobster Tauron’s. I also had a problem with Graystone getting a Sam Adama to steal one of the nifty CPU’s to run the CYLON. I wouldn’t put industrial espionage past Graystone, but he would have hired someone with more skill that. Also, why not just license the thing or make a offer that Vergis can’t refuse to buy one?
As to the STO, I guess I thought that was still interesting.
As for the WWW, yes, that is only going to work if it is lighter and a bit of tongue and cheek. Go head and introduce some steam-punk like technology, but keep invisible people out of it. One of the problems that I had with the Will Smith WWW was that I just totally didn’t believe the gadgets that were in it. We can’t build those things today, let alone witn 19th century tech. (The other problem was that I just didn’t believe James West would be black. Sorry!)
I would accept Artemis Gordon as a woman. It’s probably as far fetched as a black secret service agent, but I think that the Male/Female secret service agent team work on Warehouse 13. (And perhaps West and Gordon would be agents for Warehouse 12!) Although, now that I think about it, perhaps it would be just too close to Warehouse 13.
33… Any Five-O episode that doesn’t resort to spy satellites to solve a case is a good one, in my opinion. The only thing I didn’t like this week was speeding through town with the guy tied to the hood of the car.
44… West and Gordon worked for President Grant.
Joss- yes. Moore- NO!!!!!
(#9 Sybok- that’s the ONLY way I’d watch it.)
Ugh.
A very odd choice for a remake?!
You had successful Westerns and successful Spy shows through the 60′s and this thing allowed them to fully devolve into campy swashbuckling nonsense. You haven’t had good Westerns on broadcast and spy shows are just trying to come back in. I would have preferred a real remake of I Spy to this 1000 times over. A mix of friendship, seriousness, peril, and good banter. Instead they bring which most likely will be a wierd mix of disguises and steam punk technology.
Anything I’d post about TV at this point would be so cynical…
Just bring back Star Trek Enterprise already!
If CBS tried to make a new Trek show right now, I suspect it would be lawyers at dawn!
CBS needs to bring back Lost In Space.
WWW was a great show, I have all four seasons on DVD and watch them all the time. The first season was in B&W but it went on to color whcih really makes it great to watch.
But this show was not made to be a Sci Fi western, it was done to be a western James Bond, thus the reason for the Sleeve Derringer (or in his boot heels) and all the fancy devices that only get used in that particular episode.
As a kid I loved that show and I wanted one of those Bolero jackets, the blue cordaroy one. They would need to follow the same style as we are used to in the opening credits with those commercial break drawings becoming part of the panels. I doubt that will be done now as TV shows break every 5 minutes for 4 minutes of commercials. WWW runs 53 minutes on my DVDs. Shows today maybe run 42 minutes so you would need 8 panels instead of 4. Not to mention that they MUST keep the same music…. No question there.
Will Smith ruined the movie as he made it too Hip Hop and that show was not Hip Hop. Selma Hayak on the other hand fits the the bill for all the beautiful women James West had.
Its too bad Richard Kiel cannot be in the remake due to his back trouble. I spoke to him at great lenghts about WWW more than I do about being Jaws in my favorite OO7 film when I see him at the ST cons.
@48 I know they worked for Grant.
My idea is that a revisit to WWW would be a continuation, not a replacement. Cleveland offers to non-adjacent four year periods, and advances to a time when the West was slightly more technological. The Grant era was too early.
@52 Bring back part of Enterprise makes a lot of sense. Perhaps “in the last year of the Romulan War”? So the War could lead it off as a mini-series, and then move into exploration… maybe circa 2171. Get a guy like Manny Coto, and the Stevenses to help write the bible and do the prequel we were promised… and have it on a Kelvin-like NCC-171 ENTERPRISE.
@54 Sure, but how would it different from Voyager? (smirk!)
Better idea, make it about the American space program in the late 21st century: “Last in Space”. (j/k)
As a life long fan of The Wild Wild West I wait with guarded anticipation. I hope they don’t screw it up. The first four tell-tale things will be the setting, James West, Artemis Gordon and Migueletto Loveless.
Awesome idea! Love that show – love Ron Moore’s work! Can’t wait!
James Cawley heading Viacom or Paramount…no. Cawley’s reboot of http://WWW….dear god, no, No, NOOOOOOOOOO.
Sorry, not a fan.
Another remake, reimagining, reboot on the way.
New Ideas…….they’re few and far between these days.
I have always looked at WWW as an early TV version of Steampunk.
With the recent popularity of steampunk … I hope they incorporate those elements . We need anything to cancel out the stain Will Smith put on the WWW legacy . Maybe have a Bob Conrad cameo … but I hear he’s not well .
@61
“Maybe have a Bob Conrad cameo … but I hear he’s not well”
He did a commentary on the first season disk release. I’d heard he had been in a car accident which took him a while to recover from. Sounded really frail. I was kind of shocked it was him. That season had a few extra treats on it…..including a cool feature on the music and the man who wrote the theme music. Subsequent releases….season 2,3, 4 had no commentary or extra features. Bummer.
You know I wish Ron Moore could steal an idea from Barry Sonnenfeld with that train. That train was the true star of WWW :P
I love Wild Wild West, and 5 nights a week it’s on TV in the timeslot before Star Trek TOS, which is then followed by TNG. It’s a solid 3-hour block of TV. A modern take on it would/could be quite fascinating if done right, but it could very wrong just as easily. Hopefully attention to detail and ingenuity remain intact, while keeping some of that nostalgia factor that ’60s westerns had.
And yes, I like Will Smith in a few roles, but please keep him away from this.
Look forward to James Cawley’s version of WWW any day over another sappy Ron Moore story! Keep up the great work James!
Karl Urban, James Scott or Nathan Fillion would be good if not great for the Artemus Gordon. You need someone urbane, capable of multiple accents and so forth and since there will never be another Ross Martin, one of these three gentlemen would be my pick for ‘Artie’.
For Jim West… an obvious choice for Mr. Moore would be Chris Pine, and some folks are pointing to Jensen Ackles but I think that’s too obvious and if we’re going to have a gender switch as in BSG, it should be Jaimey West, not Artemis Gordon.
That being the case [imho] you’d want Drew Barrymore, Anne Hathaway, or maybe Jennifer Garner? An athletically skilled actress with that perfect touch of mischief.
You need someone like Danny Woodburn [Seinfeld] for Loveless, and yes if not DW this role STILL has to be cast by a ‘little person’!!! Kenneth Branaugh’s ‘Loveless’ was an insult to ‘little people’ and worse than an insult to the greatly gifted Michael Dunn!
Lastly, you REALLY NEED to bring Robert Conrad in to play one of the ‘Colonel’s’ that are supervising the agents or better still, to play Ulysses Grant!
p.s
don’t overload this new series with gadgets and effects… the original did with about a dozen main items over 4 years.
pay more attention to casting the villains… and keep away from the Batman era camp touches.
There will never be another Dr. Loveless! Read his recent biography: The Big Life of a Little Man – Michael Dunn Remembered! They should make this book into a movie!
Brisco County Jr. was sort of a modern version of WWW, but it was never really given a chance, even though it was a very good show. Since then, the only notable tv western was Deadwood. I’m all for bring WWW back if that is what it will take to get good western programs on tv again. Also, i do like the fact that CBS is the network that it will air on, and if this show is half as good as the Hawaii 5-0 remake, then CBS will keep it on the air.
Wednesday March 30, 2011 08:40pm EDT
For all you Michael Dunn fans: Did you know he is in a movie that wasn’t released until 2007?! The movie is titled Man in the Mirror and it is available on amazon.com. (Be careful not to confuse it with the Michael Jackson film by the same name.) Michael Dunn has the main role and he is in it from beginning until end. Martin Sheen is also in it and he plays nine different roles. Most of the movie was filmed in 1970 with some additional footage filmed in 2006. The movie shows the World Trade Center in three stages – being built, finished, and then the NY skyline without it. It is a great movie that sat unfinished for some 35 years, and should have gotten much more publicity than it did. Frank Weston won a couple of awards for this movie but not too many people have even heard of it. Dunn’s new biography – The Big Life of a Little Man, Michael Dunn Remembered – should also get more publicity. He lived an interesting life and one chapter in the book was actually even written by him. It too is available at amazon.com.