Deadline spies with its little eyes a sort-of remake of 1965’s I Spy. But actually, it’s not an I Spy remake at all. It was one but now it isn’t, so now it’s something more like an I Spy derivative. Written by House M.D. creator David Shore, the pilot will be directed by McG, who has had a prolific career in both film and television but should be most lauded for directing the seminal cinematic masterpiece Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Shore and McG have teamed up with Davis Entertainment—John Davis’s production company, which produces The Blacklist—to make this new project in conjunction with 20th Century Fox TV, where McG signed an overall deal earlier this year. The project, which has a put pilot commitment, will loosely be based on I Spy, the buddy-action comedy that starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, who is standing trial for sexual assault this year.
Shore and McG’s untitled project will follow a professional spy who joins forces with a smart but untrained civilian to solve cases. Originally, it was supposed to be a straight-up reboot of I Spy, which was already remade as a movie starring Eddie Murphy, Owen Wilson, and Famke Janssen in 2002. But according to Deadline, when the project ended up landing at Fox, the network wanted more of a new take than just a reboot. It’s not all that surprising that Fox would want to distance the project from something associated with Cosby. Shore and McG’s show will only be influenced by the 1965 series and will not have the same title, which is also shared by those Scholastic books from the ‘90s. Where’s the television show based on those?