Fast And Furious director Justin Lin has directed a pilot for a reboot of Magnum P.I. and the trailer looks, uh, very destructive.
It seems like everybody and their mother has some sort of fond associations with the original Magnum P.I. show so I doubt I need to explain the backstory, but basically, it was a series in the ’80s starring a mustache’d Tom Selleck who was a private investigator named Thomas Magnum (title make sense now?) cruising around Hawaii in a Ferrari 308 looking good, making witty quips and ostensibly solving mysteries.
The new version appears to take the same idea and add some crappy car crash animations, as you’ll see in the trailer:
Below the canned dialogue, we get to see a red Ferrari 458 for just long enough to think “OK, it’s a contemporary Magnum, they’re using a newer Ferrari,” before it gets smashed by an ambulance hijacked by apparent henchmen.
Anyway, that quickly transitions to “new Magnum needs another car” which turns out to be a Ferrari 308 (just like the OG show, obviously. Yay nostalgia!) But alas, that one is smashed to CGI smithereens by a Unimog in what looks like a cutscene from a PlayStation 2 game.
It does look like there will be some interesting vehicles in the show–I like the cartoon Unimog, Lada sedan chase and is that a Lenco Bearcat chasing after it through the jungle?
The show’s writing looks egregiously simplistic and cliché which means it’ll probably make CBS plenty of money. I’m in for a couple episodes, if only to see if there are any more interesting cars and helicopter stunts.
As for what Tom Selleck himself thinks, I don’t have his number to ask for an immediate comment but he was asked about “a potential Magnum reboot” when the idea was being kicked around a couple years ago and sounded pretty skeptical about somebody other than him having the title roll. I’m with you, Tom. Bring back the ’stache and the short shorts.
Doesn’t look like there is an exact air date being advertised yet but apparently we’ll be able to check out the rebooted Magnum P.I. this fall.