Ron Moore May Revisit Wild Wild West

 

Ronald D. Moore, who transformed the 1970s space opera Battlestar Galactica into a 21st-century political allegory, could next turn his attention to the 1960s TV Western The Wild Wild West.

Entertainment Weekly‘s Michael Ausiello reports Moore is in “the very early stages” of developing a remake of the series, which ran from 1965 to 1969. The original, conceived by creator Michael Garrison as “James Bond on horseback,” starred Robert Conrad and Ross Martin as Secret Service agents — charming gunslinger James West and gadgeteer/master of disguise Artemus Gordon, respectively — assigned to protect President Ulysses S. Grant from countless threats. The duo traveled cross-country on their own train, named the Wanderer.

The Wild Wild West blurred genres, combing elements of traditional Westerns with espionage thrillers, comedy and science fiction. Its advanced gadgetry and alternate-history elements — an earthquake-making device, steam-powered weaponry, a cyborg — frequently land the series on lists of steampunk works.

Conrad and Martin reunited in 1979 and 1980 for two TV movies, but the characters were last revisited (regrettably) in the 1999 Barry Sonnenfeld film starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek.