After months of speculation, Michael Pena has confirmed that a big screen adaption of the 1970’s television show CHiPs has been green lit. As previously reported, Pena will be playing Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, originally played by Erik Estrada, with Dax Shepard filling in for Larry Wilcox’s Don Baker. Shepard will also be writing and directing the film. Vincent D’Onofrio will also be starring, and Shepard’s wife Kristin Bell is in talks to star as well.
Pena stated that it will not be a period film, and insists it’ll be more Lethal Weapon, and less Starsky and Hutch:
“It’s more like a Lethal Weapon where there’s a lot of action and what we wanted to do is if there’s any comedy that we do, it’s not like one-liners here and there, like we’re the guys always being stand-up comedians. It’s almost like you lose a little bit of the plotline whenever you’re off doing your own comedy thing, so we’re focusing a little more on the plot, if that makes any sense whatsoever.”
Some might say this is a bad idea (some people being us), and some people might say that they should just stop with these television adaptions (again, us), but at least they’re not trying to adapt a good show. As popular was CHiPs was in it’s day, it wasn’t exactly rolling in Emmy’s. So maybe they can make a marked improvement from the original. Some say that’s probably not likely, though (I think you know who).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=53&v=gk0esAgO-zE