Vince Vaughn To Star In ROCKFORD FILES Movie

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Hollywood has finally made it down the rehash line to The Rockford Files, the James Garner vehicle of the late ’70s that brought the former Maverick star back into the American conscience after twelve years of relative floundering.  Word has it Vince Vaughn will revive the role of the Trans-Am driving ex-con private eye for Universal Pictures.

According to Deadline, the writing team of David Levien and Brian Koppelman have been tapped to write the project.  The duo previously brought you Rounders, and more recently (and regrettably), Ocean’s Thirteen.

If you don’t remember The Rockford Files, you’re probably not in your late thirties or early forties.  Take my word for it, for 122 episodes, it was the goods.  The show opened with Rockford’s voice squawking out of a reel-to-reel answering machine sitting on the PI’s desk alongside a perpetual game of solitaire, before smashing into one of the most memorable theme songs in TV history:

The show tracked Rockford tracking all kinds of unsavory types from his trailer in Malibu.  There was a lot of smooth-talking, a bunch of segue shots of Rockford’s Trans Am doing hasty U-turns on Sepulveda Boulevard, and a sweaty chin dimple you could poach an ostrich egg in.  Easy, ladies.

It might be hard to convince any girl who grew up in the ’80s, who first encountered James Garner in the feature adaptation of Maverick, that not long before that, Garner was sweet eye candy for an exploding demographic of divorced American women.  How hard?  Probably as hard as convincing any girl who grew up in the ’00s, who first encountered Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers, that not long ago, Vaughn was desirable slab of meat for a generation of club girls whose livers turned the color of an Arby’s Market Fresh Reuben in 2002.

As far as TV role revivals, Vaughn played a supporting role in the Ben Stiller adaptation of Starsky & Hutch back in 2004.  The last starring role he rehashed was Norman Bates in 1998′s worst decision, Psycho.  Let’s hope for his sake (and ours) things go a little better this time around.