Remakes, reboots, reimaginings – call them what you will, but 2017 is certainly turning out to be the year that Hollywood has decided to barrage us with the news that one film or another is being remade. The latest in a long line comes in the form of the 1981 Cannonball Run franchise.

Warner Bros have jumped on board to revive the franchise after acquiring the rights from the original copyright owners and are currently looking at the Central Intelligence director Rawson Thurber to take the helm with Reno 911 stars Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant in talks to tackle a new and improved script for the 21st century.

Back in 1981, Cannonball Run burst onto the scene with an all-star cast, Burt Reynolds took the lead as JJ McClure, Dom DeLuise,  Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. All starred as well as the late James Bond actor Roger Moore as Seymour Goldfarb Jr, in a role which was a self-parody as his role as Bond.The franchise subsequently went onto to deliver another three films with the last making an appearance in the 1989 Speed Zone.

Cannonball Run reboot

The original film was based on the 1979 running of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an actual cross-country outlaw road race held four times in the 1970s, starting at the Red Ball Garage on 31st Street in New York City (later the Lock, Stock and Barrel Restaurant in Darien, Connecticut) and ending at the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California, in Los Angeles. The race had previously inspired the (unrelated) 1976 films Cannonball and The Gumball Rally.

Thurber, who teamed up with Dwayne Johnson on Central Intelligence which grossed $217 Million on a $50 million budget is currently working with Johnson again developing the hostage action thriller Skyscraper which is due for release in 2018.