Vin Diesel Starring In a ‘Kojak’ Is a Real Thing, Gets ‘Skyfall’ Writers

Vin Diesel as Kojak? With news that Universal has hired 'Skyfall' writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, it looks like that 'Kojak' movie starring Vin Diesel is this much closer to being a reality.

Deadline reports that Universal is serious and totally not joking about this whole 'Kojak' thing with Vin Diesel, and to prove it, they've just hired 'Skyfall' scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to pen the story about a notoriously tough (and very bald) cop, originally played by Telly Savalas (obviously) in the TV series.

For those unfamiliar, 'Kojak' was a police procedural series that ran from 1973 to 1978, and starred Savalas in the titular role as a no-nonsense, tough-talking cop. Purvis and Wade are being brought on to "re-imagine" and modernize the series as a feature film vehicle for Diesel, which means there will be hip hop music and shoot-outs and lots of shiny cars. It's basically 'Fast and the Furious' but Vin Diesel is a cop and he's out to crack down on bad guys.

So really, this could be any movie, but people are slaves to nostalgia (and especially pop culture relics of which they only have vague memories), and it looks like 'Kojak' was on the slip of paper drawn from the bucket where Universal blindly chooses its next classic TV show to remake as a movie.