Hulu Is Smartly Developing a TV Series Based on a Little-Known IP

I’m a huge fan of Evan Morgan’s feature directorial debut, The Kid Detective. It was one of those COVID-era streaming films that must have gained some sort of cult following, but not so much that most people have even heard of The Kid Detective. And if you’re going to reboot something, this is the kind of property you should reboot: A great premise that just kind of missed its audience.

In it, Adam Brody played a washed-up 32-year-old private detective who was once heralded as a sort of Encyclopedia Brown type as a kid, but whose best days were behind him. However, he finally gets a shot at solving an adult crime — a murder — and he jumps at the opportunity in order to salvage his reputation.

At the time, I recalled that it had some real Zero Effect type energy (talk about a little-known movie that could use a remake!). It nailed a challenging tone — Hardy Boys crossed with the harder edges of Sam Spade, but it honestly could have benefited from a bigger budget, especially with its soundtrack (it was a small Canadian film). And Hulu is exactly the kind of outlet that could provide that.

No word in whether Adam Brody will return — my guess is that he’s aged out of the role. But I’m all for reclaiming brilliant old ideas, not because the remake will be better than the original, necessarily, but because no one saw the original. It’s less of a remake and more of a redo, but this time for an audience, although the fact that I republished the review over the summer suggests that it did find some traction on Netflix.

via Variety