Fox orders pilot for The Greatest American Hero reboot

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Deadline has learned that Fox has ordered a pilot for a reboot of the 1980s cult television series The Greatest American Hero. DOPE writer and director Rick Famuyiwa penned the script, and he's also been set to direct, with THE LEGO MOVIE and 21 JUMP STREET filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller serving as executive producers. It's not clear though if this is the exact same Fox project that we reported on last year, which also had Lord and Miller executive producing, but with Rodney Rothman writing the script, however that one only had a put pilot commitment by the network.

According to the site, a casting director has already been hired to start working on finding the lead for the reboot, which, similar to the original show starring William Katt, "is the story of what happens when great power is not met with great responsibility. An ordinary man, completely content with being average, wakes up with a superpower suit he never asked for and has to deal with the complications it brings his life."

I haven't watched a single episode of The Greatest American Hero, and when I was a kid, someone had to actually explain to me that the outgoing message on George Costanza's answering machine from "The Susie Episode" of Seinfeld was a parody of the theme song. It's just one of those series I've still never gotten around to checking out, so I'm kind of indifferent to there being a planned reboot, but I am curious to see how TGAH fans are going to take this news. Who would you like to see in the lead role?