Pop quiz, hotshot: name a classic TV show that redefined a genre and created both a much-copied look and some corking dialogue.
Nope, not Miami Vice. Come on you slags – it’s in the headline! Yes, The Sweeney.
With retro-action drama Life On Mars flying high and Vice in cinemas, DNA Films clearly thinks the time Is right to dig Jack Regan and George Carter out of the ‘70s and plonk them on the big screen. The company is teaming with The Business director Nick Love and original Sweeney creator Ian Kennedy Martin to rebirth the UK’s toughest cops for a new generation.
The show ran for four years with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as the members of the police's violent crime division, the Flying Squad (or, in rhyming slang, The Sweeney Todd, geddit?) While neither of them is really able to recreate their parts (Thaw’s dead and Waterman’s a bit long in the chops), there might be hopes for a cameo. And the very least Dennis could write the theme tune, sing the theme tune…
It might not have been the most politically correct series on TV – particularly judged by today’s morals – but it certainly kicked off much of the foul-mouthed, brutal police action that so many series (The Shield, anyone?) still use as trademarks today. So can it survive the journey to the 21st Century? Andrew Macdonald clearly thinks so: "We want to make it as a contemporary police story, not a period piece, but just as violent and sweary as the original," he explained to Variety. "It's about an older cop who's in the second half of a career that he has spent in relentless pursuit of the job, grappling with how the world has changed."
The production’s set for next May.