Paramount Plus announces TV remakes of Urban Cowboy and Flashdance

Paramount+ has been announcing a lot of new projects this week, in addition to showing off trailers for Halo and The Offer, and here are two more to add to the list: TV remakes of ‘80s classics Urban Cowboy and Flashdance. Both films have been subjected to attempts to turn them into TV shows in the past, with Urban Cowboy in the works at Fox a few years ago before being dropped and Flashdance set up for Paramount+ years ago (before it was Paramount+), but now the streaming service is getting serious about these old ‘80s movies.

The Urban Cowboy show in particular sounds like a pretty straightforward adaptation of the movie, with Variety saying it “goes deeper into Bud’s journey from farm to the big city in 1980s Houston.” The original movie starred John Travolta as Bud with Debra Winger as Sissy, and centered on the drama they endure after falling in love—most of which surrounds a big bar called Gilley’s and a mechanical bull. There will apparently be a lot of ‘80s country music as well. James Pondsolt from The Circle will be directing and co-writing with Benjamin Percy.

Flashdance should be a little different, with that same Variety story saying that Justin Simien (creator of Dear White People) will writing and directing. Unlike Urban Cowboy, this will be a “contemporary take” on the Jennifer Beals-starring film. The original was about an aspiring dancer who spent her days working at a steel mill, but it might actually be more famous soundtrack, which included “Maniac” and Giorgio Moroder’s “Flashdance… What A Feeling.”

We don’t know anything else about the modern take on Flashdance (are steel mills still a thing in this country?), but it seems safe to assume it’ll have some version of those songs—then again, the Variety story specifically mentioned ‘80s music for Urban Cowboy but has nothing for Flashdance.